LIBRARY OF CONGRESS?] 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



r. 






EECOGNITION 



IN 



HEAVEK 



BY 



M. RHODES, D.D., 

AUTHOR OF "LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN," ETC. 



PUBLISHED FOB THE AUTHOR. 



HVir'1 - 



PHILADELPHIA: 
LUTHERAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY, y^ 

1881. 

It 






COPYRIGHTED, 1880. 




THE HALLOWED MEMOKY OF MY DEAR SISTER, 

MARY ELIZABETH KHODES, 

BELOVED WIFE OF EEV. DAVID M. RANKIN, 

IN THE 

TEAEFUL SHADOW OF WHOSE RECENT DEATH 

THESE PAGES HAVE BEEN WRITTEN, 

I AFFECTIONATELY INSCEIBE 

€$t %nfom, 

IN THE FIEM BELIEF AND FOND HOPE 
OF A HAPPY RECOGNITION : 



Where every severed wreath is bound ; 

And none have heard the knell, 
That smites the soul in that wild sound— 

Farewell! beloved, farewell!" 



PREFACE. 



I offer no apology for writing this book. 

The subject may be regarded by some as vague 
and wholly speculative, and even as of doubtful 
propriety for public discussion. It has not seemed 
so to the author, and he inclines to the belief that 
few in their hearts really so regard it. In any event 
the topic is one of general and thrilling interest. 
To the writer it has become especially so. It is 
possible that I have been able to say but little that 
has not at some time been better said by others, but 
it has been pleasing to say even this, in my own 
way and under the impulse of my own feelings. 
The light I have gathered may be dim as the dawn, 
but if the flush of the morning be in it it is enough, 
and will serve to add, I will trust, some additional 
lustre to the fond hope. The effort is not so much 
an attempt to produce additional light upon a sub- 



6 PREFACE. 

ject which has long been a query in the human mind, 
as to respond to a personal conviction of its truth- 
fulness and to satisfy tender feelings that have come 
to the author's heart. The plant, whatever may be 
thought of its bloom, has had its roots in a some- 
what chastened soul. I shall hope that the tone of 
this unpretentious volume will not seem presump- 
tuous to any one, but moderate and even convincing 
to many. I have an earnest desire that it shall prove 
a message of truth to such as have, and to others who 
should have, their " conversation in heaven/' and 
that it shall come as good news from a far country 
to any who by reason of sore bereavement are sad 
and lonely. I have also ventured to believe that in 
this material age it may stimulate thought that will 
divert mind and heart from the seen and temporal, 
and fix the soul upon the unseen and eternal. 

The statements presented will be found to have 
their support in the endowments God has conferred 
upon us as rational beings, in His own word and 
purpose, as well as in an array of personal testimony, 
which by reason of the witnesses, is entitled to more 
than ordinary respect. ISTor has it been forgotten that 
the present life is the one we are now living, and 



PREFACE. 7 

that upon the fidelity in which its duties and respon- 
sibilities are discharged will depend the blessing 
and profit of this and all kindred themes. 

Deeply conscious that I have only dealt with the 
edges of a great and precious truth, and with the 
prayer that it may bring consolation to the sorrow- 
ing, and the benediction of saving grace to all, I lay 
this humble tribute at the feet of Him who has 
brought life and immortality to light in the Gospel, 
and to whom we owe all that is comforting and 
beautiful in the thought of recognition of our friends 
in heaven. 

St. Louis, Mo., November 10th, 1880. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Argument derived from the Intellectual Con- 
stitution, 11 

CHAPTER II. 
The Scripture Argument, 33 

CHAPTER III. 

Argument derived from Relative Truths, . . 58 

CHAPTER IY. 

A Grape-cluster, or the Opinions of Others, . 83 

CHAPTER Y. 
Practical Reflections, 106 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 



CHAPTEE I. 

" When we hear the music ringing 

In the bright celestial dome — 
When sweet angels', voices singing, 

Gladly bid us welcome home 
To the land of ancient story, 

Where the spirit knows no care 
In that land of life and glory — 

Shall we know each other there ?" 

Among the many subjects that have from time to 
time engaged the attention of the thoughtful, and that 
have interwoven themselves with the tenderest affec- 
tions and most touching memories of the human heart, 
the probable recognition of friends in heaven may be 
considered pre-eminent. 

In all the ages it has nestled in the sanctuary of the 
heart's love, and has been one of the sunniest hopes of 
the human race. Of course it has found no favor 
among those who have espoused that chilliest of all 
skepticism which denies the immortality of the soul 
and its blissful future. As there is nothing in grace 



12 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

to discourage the investigation of this subject, and the 
pleasing prospect of its realization when " life's fitful 
fever is over/' so there is nothing in infidelity to justify 
the hope or stimulate any method of its confirmation. 
Whether much or little can be said upon this topic it 
is only for those who have faith in a conscious future 
existence, and whether it shall be a theme of real 
comfort and instruction to these will be conditioned on 
their personal faith in Him who hath brought life and 
immortality to light in the Gospel. After all it is 
Christ's work and presence that gives to this doctrine 
of recognition its beauty and blessing. 

I favor no moody, disconsolate view of life ; it is 
unwise if not wrong to covet the shadows of life, still 
more to attempt to blot out its sunshine, but withal 
such is life, and such are we, that the man is to be 
pitied who never thinks of heaven, and who has never 
at least w T ondered whether at last he may not meet in 
delightful fellowship those whom he loved, and lived, 
and struggled with here below. 

The manifest hesitancy of many to speak upon this 
topic is not because the belief of it does not very gen- 
erally lie in the human heart, and that it does not 
blend its radiance with our brightest hopes, but for 
other reasons which a wise prudence naturally suggests. 

It is not a subject of very explicit revelation in the 
Word of God, and yet there is ample to rob its investi- 
gation of presumption, and to justify the belief of it. It 
would seem that the Holy Ghost had made sufficient 
allusion to it to afford us comfort and assurance, and 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 13 

to forbid the need of speculation, but not enough to 
encourage controversy, and to give advantage to one 
party over another. It is no doctrine to contend about ; 
not a suitable theme for irritable discussion. It is a 
subject for hearts that yearn toward heaven ; it turns 
the sweet light of hope upon the pathway of the lonely 
and weary. 

In addition it is plain enough that to the great mass 
of mankind there are subjects of far greater practical 
importance. So long as so many men and women, 
some of whom talk and think about heaven, and en- 
tertain vain hopes of passing its bright portals at last, 
are yet without a single qualification required by the 
Gospel, we may not, I am sure, with any frequency 
detain upon subjects like this. 

Nor, on the other hand, if it be any part of God's 
counsel may we set it aside entirely as only visionary, 
speculative, and sentimental. If but one ray. of the 
sun fall from behind the cloud in a dark day we wel- 
come it. Because there is not a flood of light on this 
subject shall we reject the faint beam here and there 
that intimates such delightful fellowship in the future 
world ? Really, as I come to the study of it, I am 
not discouraged, but rather surprised, that there is so 
much intimation of it in the Sacred Scriptures. It is 
largely inferential, it is true, but the inference is fair 
and natural. Nor may we set aside as unworthy of 
respect the warm and sober convictions of the heart 
on this subject, for now and again there is a sweet har- 
mony between the feelings of the heart and the truth. 



14 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

I believe it to be so here. Our whole nature revolts 
at the thought of our having no definite conscious 
knowledge of our loved ones in heaven. We can 
hardly conceive of the bliss and fellowship of the 
heavenly community without recognition. Unques- 
tionably it is largely in the mind and heart of hu- 
manity, and where there is doubt it only needs that 
some dear one be translated to the skies, and the hope 
is at once kindled. It is love's longing ; we want to 
believe it ; and as we look away from the graves at 
our feet we hope it is true. How universal the re- 
sponse to lines like these : 

" I felt that however long to me 
The slumber of the grave might be, 
I should know him again amid the countless throng 
Who shall bear a part in the seraphim's song." 

Or to these in Bickersteth's Yesterday, To-day, and 
Forever : 

u I was no stranger in a strange land there, 
But rather as one who, travel-worn and weary, 
Weary of wandering through many climes, 
At length returning homeward eyes far off 
The white cliffs of his fatherland, and ere 
The laboring ship touches its sacred soil 
Leaps on the pier, while round him crowding press 
Children, and kith, and friends, who in a breath 
Ask of his welfare, and with joyous tongues 
Pour all their love into his thirsty ear." 

And whether we may speak with the positiveness of 
undoubted conviction or not, I think it no disadvan- 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 15 

tage, but as profitable as it is pleasing, to rend the veil 
of our sorrows, or to stop in the too often thoughtless 
rush of life and contemplate a theme like this. 

It tempers our thought with the grave ; it puts whole- 
some restraint upon us ; and how often it would light 
up the eye that has been tear-dimmed long enough. 
In the light of this truth, life is a journey, and we are 
going to a distant land to see our friends, and to be 
with them forever, for they never die there. 

" That fearful foe ! 
Here ever bearing from us those we love, 
Kesistless as his power is owned below, 
Has none above." 

And it is a beautiful ministry to be able to say any- 
thing that is worth saying, that will pour consolation 
into stricken hearts, put a permanent lustre into the 
hopes of the future, and in any wise lift the minds of 
men to that "better country " which we should all seek. 
If I may be able to render any such service to the 
hearts and lives of those who may peruse these pages 
I shall be grateful to Him who has given us this " good 
hope through grace," and who, above all, we should 
delight to serve on earth and long to see in heaven. 

It is proper to observe at the beginning that there 
are some things preparatory to an intelligent and en- 
joyable contemplation of this subject. It is possible 
that these words will come to none who do not enter- 
tain the hope of recognition. What we desire, at least 
those of us who look at it from the Christian stand- 



16 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

point, is some confirmation for our faith. But looking 
at it from this finite sphere, and with our finite endow- 
ment, we must be careful not to entangle it with other 
truths which are more essential, and which are settled 
by the Word, and so embarrass the hope to which the 
heart clings so fondly. Moreover, we must have friends 
in heaven, children saved by the conditions of the cov- 
enant of grace, or others who have fallen asleep in 
Jesus, and we must ourselves entertain the hopes of 
the Gospel before the contemplation of this subject 
will afford real stimulus to life and joyous hope in 
death. If we disregard all that God has done to pre- 
pare a heaven for us and ours, and to put an eternal 
benediction into our future, then this is no subject for 
us, and it were idle to speak about it. The truth is, 
there is far more doubt about many getting to heaven 
than there is concerning the recognition of friends by 
those who shall attain to that blessed fellowship. I 
shall refer to this again, but I desire at the very begin- 
ning to announce the thought, that the shadow of its 
warning may be upon us all the way. 

In addition we must bear in mind that our personal 
relationships in heaven will be very different from those 
which characterize our earthly state. Our present so- 
cial and domestic affinities do not carry over into the 
future world, and go forward in the same order as 
here. The family is an institution of the earth and 
for the earth. Its present purpose and peculiar charac- 
ter terminate with the present life. This was clearly 
set forth on that occasion when the Sadducees resisted 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 17 

the doctrine of the resurrection as taught by our Lord. 
They knew a woman who had had seven husbands, 
and they set this example over against the teaching of 
the Saviour, and asked : " Therefore in the resurrec- 
tion whose wife shall she be of the seven ? for they all 
had her." The Saviour replied : " Ye do err, not know- 
ing the Scriptures, nor the power of God, for in the 
resurrection they neither marry nor are given in mar- 
riage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." This 
language is explicit, and clearly defines that the social 
order of the heavenly world is very different from that 
which is in harmony with this present and more ma- 
terial life. These earthly conditions which give such 
charm and noble impulse to the present life will be re- 
tained in memory above ; we shall know how 7 and w T hat 
we were in them here, but in fact they shall be dis- 
placed by an order suited to our higher perfection and 
different sphere. We shall still love with a stronger 
and more sacred intensity, but not as husband and 
wife, not as parent and child; that seeming selfishness 
and exclusiveness of love will forever have vanished, 
and we shall be endowed with a common affection, in 
itself as pure as the sublime object upon which it will 
be centred. It is quite probable that there will be 
degrees in this affection, so that those w T ho were dearest 
to us here will be dearest to us there ; but our love will 
never more be exercised in that peculiar manner in 
which it is often bestowed here. Our love there will 
be celestial, not earthly ; it will be a holy perfection 
of our being, and not a condition necessitated by our 



18 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

circumstances. We shall love as glorified saints, rid 
of all limitation ; we shall love as children of the King, 
without any preference that could kindle a prejudice 
or beget envy; we shall love as God loves, and yet re- 
joice that here and there is one that on earth was 
" bone of our bone, and heart of our heart." 

There is nothing in this change of conditions to in- 
terfere with the doctrine of recognition. The destruc- 
tion of our relationships here is not necessarily the 
destruction of our knowledge concerning them, and of 
one another in the higher sphere. But before reference 
is made to any of the proofs commonly employed to 
sustain the doctrine of recognition, I must allude to an 
objection which early springs to the mind in the dis- 
cussion of this subject. It is a painful objection, and 
we are frank to confess that it burdens the topic with 
some embarrassment. It is asked, if we shall recog- 
nize one another in heaven, how shall it be — what 
shall be our feelings respecting those of our friends 
who may fail to join us there? I cannot hope to give 
a satisfactory answer to this question. Possibly, of 
all the answers that have been given to it, not one 
is wholly satisfactory to the mind. It is bewilder- 
ment to our feeble, finite understanding, but it is no 
destruction of the brighter side of the argument. It 
remains true that saints will know each other in 
heaven, and that they will be perfectly happy. Let it 
suffice that a state of absolute perfection must imply the 
hearty approbation in the saints of all that constitutes 
such a state and of all that enters into its felicity, and 



recognition in heaven. 19 

that our relation to others when we enter such a state 
will not be such as we sustain to them now, in our 
earthly sphere. And, above all, let us take well to 
heart the impulse rooted in this thought to urge us to 
constant effort and prayer for the salvation of those 
we love. It is here, and by this method, we shall best 
remove this objection. Would God that all who have 
any interest in this subject might look upon their 
children, and upon their loved companions and friends, 
and feel that all are included in the Saviour's sweet 
assurance, " I go to prepare a place for you, . . . that 
where I am there ye may be also." 

But where shall we find any confirmation for the 
pleasing hope that lights up the pilgrim-way of so 
large a number? Faith must take precedence of rea- 
son iu the discussion and acceptance of spiritual truth, 
yet we may affirm that it is a most reasonable doctrine 
that we shall recognize our friends in heaven. It is 
true that we know but little of the conditions of being 
in the heavenly world, aside from the facts of holiness 
and happiness. But with all this we may determine 
whether there is any harmony between this truth and 
enlightened reason. Reason alone cannot establish 
the doctrine of recognition ; its conclusions are not 
final with respect to any spiritual truth ; but considering 
the doctrine we may determine whether or not it seems 
reasonable that we should believe it. At once it is 
plain that a truth that is in itself so pure, so identified 
with all our noblest feelings and brightest hopes, and 



20 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

so in harmony with God's purpose and with all plain 
revelation on the higher and final sphere of existence, 
is not unreasonable. Human happiness is largely de- 
pendent upon human fellowship ; God has provided 
for this necessity both in the nature He has given us 
and in the relationship which He has appointed, and 
if we can be perfectly happy in heaven in the absence 
of recognition, it is in violation of the present order, 
and incomprehensible to us. And surely it is not to 
be thought a thing in conflict with the holiness and 
higher order of the heavenly world, that we should 
recognize those whom we loved on earth. Indeed, it 
seems to us that any disposition to disbelieve this truth 
is far more unreasonable than the belief of it. There 
may be difficulties in the way that seem serious, objec- 
tions that trouble the conscience, but for the most part 
does not a belief of it argue a better heart and a purer 
hope than a disbelief of it. It is true we shall rise up 
at last in a glorified spiritual body, but shall we lose our 
identity, or is it reasonable to suppose that in our 
glorified being, free from all soil and rid of every 
limitation, we shall know less than we do in our present 
very moderate state ? Certainly our faculties will lose 
nothing in their higher promotion and untrammelled 
liberty. If grace on earth sanctifies and gives a wider 
scope to human affections and friendship, and makes 
acquaintance w 7 ith one another not only a means of 
promoting our earthly interests, but also a revelation 
of the noble within us, will grace do less for us in 
glory? Eather is it not quite reasonable to suppose 



KECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 21 

that acquaintanceship will simply be carried up to a 
higher perfection in heaven, and be made the happy 
means of higher ends, so that there we will certainly 
illustrate perfectly what the Apostle asks but is not 
always secured here : " Let love be without dissim illa- 
tion. " It seems reasonable that the whole sublime 
function of love is in no small part dependent, so far 
as our relation to one another is concerned, on the fact 
of recognition, and of a fellowship which is meaning- 
less without it. 

But suppose we deny this doctrine, what is the re- 
sult ? What a shadow it puts upon the sheen of our 
hopes, and what violence it does to the almost universal 
thought and hope of mankind respecting the future. 
That God could make us happy without any such dis- 
tinct recognition may not be questioned by us, but 
with the faculties we possess, and with such knowledge 
of His purpose concerning us as He has been pleased to 
disclose to us, is it quite reasonable to suppose that He 
will do so ? Besides, if there are difficulties in the way 
of arbitrary statement on this doctrine, are not the 
difficulties that attend its denial still greater? If per- 
sonal acquaintance ends with the grave, then, in a sense 
that now thrills us with delight, as our faith and hope 
anticipate the future, we are done with our loved ones 
forever when we bury them, and we must enter heaven 
as travellers enter a strange land, unknown and without 
power to distinguish others in any such distinct way 
as love would suggest to me, that robs heaven of 
much of the great-heart sympathy, and of much of the 



22 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

home idea which I have always been pleased to associ- 
ate with it. All this is unreasonable to me, and I 
am happier and better in the fond hope that it shall 
be otherwise. Is it quite reasonable to suppose that so 
beautiful a hope, which in all the ages has been the 
common heritage of humanity, should be without any 
foundation? What matters it that it has sometimes 
been called in question ? Is there any subject of human 
thought and faith that has not been denied ? It is 
reasonable to presume that the universality of the 
acceptance of this truth entitles it to our respect, and 
establishes it at least as probably true. Another has 
justly said : " As beliefs always imply supposed reasons 
competent to produce them ; a universal belief would 
seem to imply a universal and strong ground in its 
favor; or at least it must show so much that it is not 
esteemed repugnant to common reason." 

And this conviction is strengthened in the fact that 
there is a want, a craving in our nature that finds 
satisfaction in this doctrine. We really, and from 
commendable motives, desire it ; we sometimes long 
for the realization of the hope ; we feel it must be true. 
Here, very largely, the hope first puts its roots, and 
then blooms into faith. Is it irrational ? Rather is it 
not in harmony with all analogies that this longing 
should be met, as God has ordained that the craving 
for food should be met by the response of that which 
is desired. And who wiJl take it upon him to say, 
that what is hidden from sense, and what may even 
transcend reason, may not be disclosed somehow to the 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 23 

inner sense, to consciousness? No, from the stand- 
point of reason, it does not seem to me that heaven is 
a lonely island ; not a vast metropolis crowded with 
strangers ; it is a city of saintly companions ; it is a 
home of loving familiar friends. When the tired feet 
of the little child, or of the aged Christian, or of any 
weary pilgrim whose steps have been toward the golden 
gate, cross its threshold, there will be some familiar 
voice and face to greet them, and a more brilliant 
retinue than ever attended kings ; methinks, these who 
were known and loved on earth, will hasten to present 
the newcomer to the saints of the ages, and to Him, unto 
whom they will speedily pay their tribute of love and 
song. Be comforted, then, you in whose history the 
strongest loves and the dearest hopes of life have been 
sundered and crushed by the relentless hand of death ; 
those withered hopes have already revived and shine 
in a sublimer transfiguration. Your departed ones have 
only gone up higher in the scale of goodness and being. 
If you and your loved departed are one in Christ, a 
sweeter fellowship awaits you than you ever knew T here 
below. 

It were remarkable, do you not think so, if amid 
that great throng who have been redeemed and taken 
from the earth, and to whose just spirits we are to come 
by and by, we should see none whom we knew and 
loved here. Shall we walk the golden streets and never 
light upon one of those? Shall we hear some sweet 
song learned in the earthly pilgrimage, and now trilled 
by some clear ringing voice, and never recognize the 



24 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

tone and sentiment? The very communion of the 
saints on earth, the blessed and intimate relation be- 
tween the saints on earth and in heaven, the deepest 
and best feelings of our nature, ail give reasonable 
assurance that we shall know our friends in heaven. 
I must say of this doctrine of Recognition what Socrates 
said of the doctrine of the soul's immortality just be- 
fore he drank the fatal hemlock : " That this, or some- 
thing like this, is the destiny of souls, appears to me a 
reasonable belief, a belief on which one may fairly 
rest his hopes." 

But a second argument commonly employed in sup- 
port of this doctrine is the continuance of Memory in 
the other world. 

That death should quench the memory of all we 
have known and experienced here is clearly a contra- 
diction of the nature of the soul, and of the teaching 
of God's Word. 

Memory is not a member of the body, but a faculty 
of the soul, and as such must partake of its immor- 
tality. 

And when the soul, rid of its material burden, rises 
into the ecstasies and perfections of the better world, 
will consciousness be less than now ? Will all that has 
been written by the finger of love on the sensitive tablets 
of memory be forever effaced, and the sweet face of that 
child you last saw nestled among the flowers, but cold 
and pale, or of that mother, wife, husband, or friend, 
whom God summoned home before you, never be rec- 
ognized again ? Why, if this be true, we shall not even 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 25 

know in heaven what grace made us, nor when -and where 
the soul mounted up as on eagles' wings into the beati- 
tudes of God. 

I shall not attempt to be metaphysical here, and 
show the perpetuation of memory by the manner in 
which its laws and operations are identified with being 
itself. Let it suffice to say that if all memory of the 
past be cut off at death, then, in the future we must 
begin existence as if we never had been before, and 
this would complicate the problem of life, and put 
quite as much mystery into the past as into the future. 
In addition, and more important than all, if memory 
does not survive, we must abandon the idea that the 
future life is but a continuation, and for the Christian, 
the sublime culmination of this. 

But it is plain that memory is necessary to the pres- 
ervation of our very identity, and hence as a distinct 
faculty, and with all its treasure, good or bad, sad or 
glad, it must carry over into the world to come. Christ 
did not come to destroy our nature. He came to destroy 
sin and to perfect our nature, and I am sure that 
these faculties of our souls will not only not be de- 
stroyed hereafter, but they will be greatly intensified, 
and we shall remember all the way in which God has 
led us ; we shall remember those with whom we took 
sweet counsel, and with whom we walked to and sat in 
the house of God ; we shall remember where and when 
God " made the place of his feet glorious, " and how 
the glory of the Redeemer in the transfiguration of 
worship or of a triumphant death shone in the face of 



26 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

the saint we loved. Those bright ones who are fault- 
less before the throne have not forgotten the world in 
which their Saviour bought them with His blood, nor 
the way in which they ascended to bliss, nor those 
they loved and prayed with on earth. Every impres- 
sion that shapes character below is remembered above. 
Kindly words that comforted and cheered weary 
hearts in time are woven into the undying strains of 
heaven's music, and they will not die. Sever the 
memory of our struggles and growth below from the 
sense of our enjoyment above, and we should con- 
stitute an entirely new order of beings. But this can- 
not be. There is only one redeemed community ; the 
saints on earth, along with the saints in heaven, con- 
stitute the blood-washed company ; both have their 
names written in heaven ; they are two folds of one 
flock, with one Good Shepherd ; one part yet remains 
in the body, and the other part has joined the general 
assembly of the church of the first-born. 

" One army of the living God, 
To His command we bow ; 
Part of the host has crossed the flood, 
And part is crossing now." 

I have no thought that every individual memory in 
the better world is an absolute blank. " No ! Mem 
ory is a picture gallery, in which dear images remain 
imperishable on earth, and these images will not be 
effaced in heaven till displaced by the loved, not lost, 
originals." 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 27 

But we need not be content with these statements. 
Memory is so strangely interwoven with our moral 
being, and with our happiness and moral relationship 
in this world and in the next, that it is not to be won- 
dered at that the Scriptures give distinct intimation 
on this part of the subject. And it cannot be helped 
if they present a dark as w^ell as a bright side. If 
men do not wish to carry the memory of evil over into 
the eternal world, a gracious way has been provided to 
turn the course of humau life, and to strike from the 
soul the guilt and woe of sin, and fill it with heavenly 
ministries and memories. Let men know that they are 
fairly warned, and that nothing' in God's universe can 
change His own law of compensation : "Whatsoever 
a man soweth, that shall he also reap." If we obsti- 
nately and persistently sow a bad memory here, a bad 
memory will be the result in eternity, and, involving 
the reproach of all the quickened faculties of the soul, 
it will be hell enough for the man who is its victim. 
The very idea of rewards and punishments in the 
future implies memory. The relations of this life, of 
this probationary existence, of this season of offered 
grace to the future, are declared in God's purpose and 
word to be recognized in the future world. Judgment 
demands memory, and, saved or unsaved, it will be far 
from sluggish on that day. Paul says : " Every one 
shall give account of himself to God." " Every man's 
work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare 
it, because it shall be revealed by fire." " Therefore 
judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, 



28 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

who both will bring to light the hidden things of dark- 
ness and will make manifest the counsels of the 
hearts." 

In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Abra- 
ham says to Dives : " Son, remember that thou in thy 
lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Laza- 
rus evil things ; but now he is comforted and thou art 
tormented." Here is a distinct act of memory, and 
not less vivid is his consciousness of the unhappy con- 
dition of his brethren on earth, whom he does not wish 
to see in the same sad plight and place with himself; 
all of which is significant in its relation to the doctrine 
of future recognition. That thrilling judgment scene, 
presented in such graphic detail by our Lord in the 
25th chapter of Matthew, and so swept by the storm 
of merited condemnation on the one side, and so bright 
with God's smile and glory on the other, is an un- 
doubted statement of the continuance and exercise of 
memory in the future. The record it has made here, 
especially in our relation to God and his gracious in- 
terposition, is there unfolded to the joy of the saved 
and to the confusion and despair of the lost. " Inas- 
much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, 
my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Come ye 
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
for you from the foundation of the world." "Inasmuch 
as ye did it not to one of the least of these ye did it 
not to me. . . . And these shall go away into ever- 
lasting punishment." Whether we speak of the saved 
or the lost, each will understand the justness of his 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 29 

final destiny, and gladly or sadly remember how it was 
wrought out here on earth. 

And what a tribute to the immortality of memory 
the seer of Patmos pays in these words : " I saw under 
the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word 
of God, and for the testimony which they held. And 
they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O 
Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge 
our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" Rev. 6: 
9, 10. Then the martyrs have not forgotten the bloody 
tribulation through which they passed to the white robe 
and the victor's palm. And if we shall remember in 
the spheres of thought and action, I am sure w T e shall 
not forget in the spheres of vision and blessed fellow- 
ship. ISTo, dear reader, our very rational organism 
forbids the thought that we shall be launched into 
eternity without the power to remember, and therefore 
recognize, those who were identified with our highest 
ministries, our purest joys, and our noblest life. 

Memory and recognition are both implied in the 
great doctrine of resurrection, for it is a resurrection 
of individuals, and in the fact that it is this mortal 
that is to put on immortality. It is implied in the 
fact that heaven is a vast and happy community, and 
that we do not throw off the nature or character we 
possess, but are only sublimely promoted in them. 

You have departed loved ones ; they have died in 
the Lord. If the thought that you should not know 
and come to their fellowship in heaven has cost you a 
pang abandon it, for it is contrary to reason, contrary 



30 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

to the conditions of immortal mind, and to the word of 
God. Poetry is often fanciful, and oftener sentimental, 
but I think these lines a truthful description of the 
experience of the one just passing the bright portals: 

" Another son of Adam's race, through Jesus' loving might, 
Hath crossed the waste, hath reached the goal, hath van- 
quished in the fight. 
Hail, brother, hail ! we welcome thee ! join in our sweet ac- 
cord ! 
Lift up the- burden of our song — salvation to the Lord ! 

" And now from out the glory, the living cloud of light, 
The old familiar faces come beaming on his sight ; 
The early lost, the early loved, the friends of long ago, 

Companions of his conflicts and pilgrimage below. 

4 

" They parted here in weakness, and suffering, and gloom; 
They meet amid the freshness of heaven's immortal bloom ; 
Henceforth, in ever-enduring bliss, to wander hand in hand 
Beside the living waters of the still and sinless land." 

The anticipation is blessed, full of impulse to better 
living, and a source of unspeakable comfort for all 
whose way has been darkened, and whose lives have been 
hushed into lonely quiet by death. A beam of light 
from the infinite mercy, I am pleased to throw it across 
the path of any such an one, and to let it fall on the 
graves of the bereaved, or on the dying bed of the 
timid. Oh, ye that sorrow, not without hope, think 
not all the while of those who have been taken from 
you, but of the glory that in this doctrine is to be re- 
vealed in them and you when the triumphs of grace 
have culminated. 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 31 

" Oh, who can tell the rapture of those to whom 'tis given 
Thus to renew the bonds of earth amid the bliss of heaven ? 
Thrice blessed be His holy name, who, for our fallen race, 
Hath purchased by Plis bitter pains such plenitude of grace." 

Bat perchance the eye of some one will fall on these 
pages who has loved ones in heaven, and he may read 
them with tearful longing and yet have no hope or title 
to that blessed inheritance. It may be, on that bright 
sunny shore a dear child, a sainted mother, a pious 
wife, or friend, now chants the song of redeeming love, 
and betimes, in your loneliness, you long to see them, 
and wonder whether you will ever come together again. 
Well, it will be no fault of a merciful God if you do 
not. The provisions of grace are not limited : " Who- 
soever will, may come." " Him that cometh I will in 
no wise cast out." As you read, the invitation comes 
to you, and how tender and strong the appeal to 
your soul in the memory of those who have ascended 
to the skies ! You need not mistake in so solemn and 
important a matter. The conditions of grace here and 
of glory hereafter are stated with great earnestness 
and plainness : " He that believeth shall be saved." 
" And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that 
defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or 
maketh a lie; but they which are written in the 
Lamb's book of life." No man may pass the golden 
gates tramping under foot the blood of the covenant, 
or soiled with unrepented and unforgiven sin, but 
washed in that blood which cleanseth from all sin he 
may go in ; you may, dear reader, not only to greet those 



32 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

who have gone before you, but, better than all, to be 
greeted by Him who hath loved you and given Him- 
self for you. First accept Christ as your own personal 
Saviour, have Him formed within you the hope of 
glory, and then joyfully contemplate a meeting by and 
by with the sainted ones. The thought of recognition 
has no charm apart from union now and everlasting 
fellowship hereafter with Christ. In your thought, 
and love, and hope, He must be crowned Lord of all, 
and in all your tempers and moods, in all your life 
and hope, in your death and entrance beyond, He must 
be your supreme delight, and then this doctrine will 
prove a shrine of comfort and blessing. As you think 
of the friends beyond may the sentiment of these lines 
breathe the loving prayer of your heart : 

" Yes, Lord Jesus, I will love Thee, 
In my gladness, in my grief; 
From Thy service nought shall move me ; 
I will serve Thee all my life, — 
Ever to Thy voice replying, 
Ready when death comes to me,. 
For the soul may welcome dying 
Whose humble trust is fixed on Thee. 

" Lord, be near, my soul to strengthen, 
As my day on earth goes on, 
Till the evening shadows lengthen 
And the night is coming down. 
Then, Thy gracious hands extending, 
In the fulness of Thy love, 
Whisper, ' Child, this life is ending, 
Come and rest with Me above.' " 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 33 



CHAPTER II. 

" When the holy angels meet us, 

As we go to join their band, 
Shall we know the friends that greet us 

In that glorious spirit-land ? 
Shall we see the same eyes shining 

On us, as in days of yore ? 
Shall we feel the dear arms twining 

Fondly round us, as before ?" 

It is when we are in need that we best know the 
value of a friend; it is when the loneliness of their 
absence oppresses us that we most appreciate our loved 
ones ; and so there are tender portions of God's word 
and themes that touch us in our deepest afflictions 
and dearest relations, that we can best understand and 
most correctly estimate when we look at them through 
the tears of some bereavement or other affliction that 
enables us to realize that " the things w T hich are seen 
are temporal." The flower gives out its aroma most 
freely after it is crushed ; the alabaster box of precious 
ointment w T as broken before its fragrance filled the 
room, and so the heart is never so truthful an inter- 
preter of much that is written for our comfort as 
when it bleeds over some withered hope. " Cast thy 
burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain thee," is 
a beautiful Scripture, full of sweet promise and lofty 

3 



34 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

privilege. How nearly and how tenderly it brings 
the finite and infinite together. But what cares he 
about it whose mind is at ease, and whose heart has 
never wearied under corroding care nor wept over the 
pale, still form whose removal has left such a scar on 
the soul and such a gloomy blank in the life? Let 
the shadow of death fall on the hearthstone, and the 
vacant chair suggest only the form and memory of the 
life that has been quenched, and what a different and 
tender meaning such Scriptures as these take on : 
" Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." Or this, 
which Byron could never hear "recited without the 
tears filling his eyes: " They shall hunger no more, 
neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on 
them nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the 
midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead 
them unto living fountains of waters ; and God shall 
wipe away all tears from their eyes." To the devout 
soul, to the soul that lives by faith and not by sight, 
the Bible has never radiated a brighter glory, nor 
beamed with the smile of a fuller promise than when 
the windows of the home have been darkened and the 
heart has gone weeping to the shrine where God re- 
veals himself as between the cherubim. He can 
preach best on the words, " Deep calleth unto deep ; at 
the noise of thy waterspouts all thy waves and thy 
billows are gone over me," who has himself been in 
the flood. 

And like one looking longingly from a foreign 
shore towards his native land where his friends abide, 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 35 

he will have the largest sympathy with this truth who 
has loved friends on the other side. And thus it has 
happened to the writer since the writing of these pages 
began. A dear sister, next to myself in the order of 
the family, a devoted wife and mother, and to whom 
I bade good- by but a few weeks since, has gone to be 
with Christ, which is far better. I left her well and 
happy, not in her own but in her paternal home ; and 
there where she spent her sunny childhood, there 
amid sweet and hallowed memories, there away from 
her dear children, God came and gave His beloved 
sleep. Of her own household a part crossed the flood 
before her, and she has met and recognized them ere 
this. And concerning these lambs who wearied early 
and laid them down to rest, Mr. Bickersteth expresses 
the mother's experience in these beautiful lines : 

" One look sufficed to tell me they were mine, 
My babes, my blossoms, my long-parted ones ; 
The same in feature and in form as when 
I bent over their dying pillow last, 
Only the spirit now disenrobed of flesh, 
And beaming with the likeness of their Lord." 

From amid these shadows I contemplate this sub- 
ject with the spell of a new charm upon me. I have 
now a profounder interest in it, and brighter than ever 
this bow of promise beams from the sacred page, and' 
throws its light not only on the grave still wet with 
the tears of stricken love, but into the very loved face 
now gone from sight but beautiful to the vision of 



36 KECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

faith as it radiates the splendor of holy transfiguration. 
With the grief of such a providence on two homes and 
many hearts, may I not say with a new emphasis as 
we advance : "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast 
the words of eternal life." Jno. 6 : 68. 

In this chapter we propose to examine the Scripture 
argument on this subject: "To the law and to the 
testimony." The final settlement of all questions per- 
taining to our salvation and destiny, both in this and 
in the future life, must be brought to this test. But 
we may not set all Scripture aside that does not plainly 
state the doctrine. There are many passages in the 
Word of God that have a hidden meaning which can 
only be brought out by comparison with other Scrip- 
tures, and by the discovery of the relation they sus- 
tain to other truths not directly taught by them. If 
we ignore the doctrine because of the lack of explicit 
statement, then there is much else that we ardently 
believe, and have even incorporated with our creeds, 
that upon the same principle must be abandoned. 
There is a progress in the development of this doctrine 
in the Scriptures. In the Old Testament we have 
only sufficient intimation of the heavenly existence to 
reveal the dim dawn of recognition, but as we advance 
the light increases, until in the Apocalypse we have 
the perfect day, not in the redeemed man, lost and 
lonely, but in a redeemed society for whom a city has 
been prepared, " a . city which is compact together." 
If there be but a meagre revelation on this subject 
which may be regarded conclusive, there is a chiming 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 37 

of truth which yields no other inference, and in addi- 
tion the whole plan and spirit of the Scriptures seem 
to justify the belief of saintly recognition in heaven. 
If recognition beyond were a fundamental doctrine, I 
am sure it would be set forth with all distinctness ; 
but it is not, and there doubtless is wisdom in leaving 
it just as it is, with here and there an intimation, like 
the dim dawn that heralds the coming sun. There is 
not enough to challenge a devotion that might be 
better employed, and yet there is ample to produce a 
wholesome restraint and allow souls to foster the fond 
hope without presumption. In the Scriptures bearing 
upon this doctrine in the Old Testament I shall refer 
to those commonly brought forward in its defence, add- 
ing some additional in the New Testament which, in 
ray judgment, support the hope. In the patriarchal 
age men looked upon life as a pilgrimage. They 
did not talk about dying as we do, but when the end 
came they w 7 ere " gathered unto their fathers" or 
" unto their people." Now mark these beautiful ex- 
pressions. How distinctly they set forward the idea 
of a holy and delightful fellowship. It was the method 
of announcing a man's death. He had gone to his own, 
and how strong, and reasonable, and beautiful the in- 
timation that he felt he would be greeted by those 
who had gone before him. 

Abraham was not buried " in any of the sepulchres 
of his people," but it was said of him, when he lay 
down to die, that he was " gathered unto his fathers." 

The very same expression was applied to Isaac, not 



38 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

after, but before his burial, clearly indicating that his 
liberated spirit had gone to join, in conscious reunion, 
those who had preceded him. And of Joseph it is 
said he "yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto 
his people/*' Of all these we have the fitting cul- 
mination in Moses. In Deuteronomy we read : " Get 
thee up and die in the mount whither thou goest up, 
and be gathered unto thy people.'* " No man knoweth 
of his sepulchre unto this day.'* Borne away by the 
angels we know not where, but his great, grand soul 
went up to join the general assembly of the church of 
the first-born ; and when the glory of the transfigura- 
tion came down from God out of heaven, more than a 
thousand years afterwards, Moses was there, and was 
recognized ; and I have no thought that for these long 
centuries the ransomed have been singing the song of 
Moses and the Lamb, without recognizing God's ser- 
vant whom he has been pleased to put into such dis- 
tinguished fellowship. On this particular Scripture, 
"gathered unto his people," etc., a writer observes: 
" The most distinguished of modern and Hebrew 
scholars — the celebrated Gesenius — after a minute crit- 
ical investigation of the original expression, declares 
that the phrase ' being gathered to one's people or 
fathers ' is expressly distinguished by the Hebrew 
writers both from death and burial, and signifies the 
spirit's departing into Sheol or Hades, where the 
Hebrews supposed all their ancestors to be congre- 
gated." 

And was not the same thought prominent in the 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN, 39 

mind and heart of Jacob when, stricken at the loss of 
Joseph, he mourned for him as for one dead, and said, 
"I will go down into the grave unto my son mourn- 
ing?" 

He had no expectation of lying by his side w T hen his 
troublous pilgrimage was over, for, in his mind, the 
wild beasts had torn him ; but he did hope to join him 
in the experience of his immortality, and to share then, 
unmolested, his fellowship. 

By the side of these Scriptures in the Old Testa- 
ment, the herald twilight of a brighter morning yet to 
come, put some of those rapt utterances of our Lord 
in the Gospel of John, such as, "I go to prepare a 
place for you ; and if I go and prepare a place for 
you I will come again and receive you unto myself, 
that where I am there ye may be also." And again, 
"Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given 
me be with me where I am, that they may behold my 
glory." Between those and these is there not a beau- 
tiful harmony, and do not the latter confirm the in- 
timation of conscious and blessed fellowship indicated 
by the former ? There is a society in heaven, of which 
we shall have occasion to speak again, and in it, in the 
brighter revelation of the New Testament, the names 
of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, the representatives 
of the good and true of their time, are expressly men- 
tioned ; and shall we be unconscious of their persons and 
presence when the perfection of redeemed mankind is 
attained? Shall we sit down with the>e noble souls, 
of whom the w T orld was not worthy, and who stand out 



40 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

in the mighty purpose of God like the towering peaks 
of a mountain range ; shall we celebrate in grate- 
ful ascriptions to Moses and the Lamb, the triumphs of 
Redemption, and not be really and happily conscious 
of our associates ? Such a thought, at least to our 
finite minds, puts confusion into the sublime order of 
God's word and plan. Another passage is that which 
discloses the grief of David over the death of his child. 
When the rush of his grief was past, he found a solace 
in this thought : " I shall go to him, but he shall not 
return to me.' 7 2 Samuel 12: 23. He certainly did not 
mean that he should go to a something, nor yet to some 
one whom he would not know and love in a specific 
way. The grief that has come to him is very bitter, 
for the king knows that there is a sting of retribu- 
tion in it, and he would be utterly broken-hearted 
but for the sweet hope that nestles in his heart that he 
shall join his child and share his companionship by 
and by. It was not any association with his emaciated 
body to which he had reference, for there it lay pale 
and cold before him, but it was the conscious immortal 
part that had forsaken the shattered tenement now 
crumbling to dust. "I shall go to him," I shall meet 
him, and call him by name, and sit and talk w T ith him 
in that world where tears are never shed and friends 
are never parted. Is it not the hope that at once 
blooms in the soul to light up the sadness of those who, 
through the conditions of grace, look onward where 
the light is undimmed by a cloud, to the meeting of 
their loved departed ? Has not many a pious father 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 41 

and mother stood over the angel babe, or the promis- 
ing son or daughter that had fallen early under the 
common blight, and as hope kindled afresh under its 
baptism of sorrow, uttered these words, " I shall go to 
him — to her?" If there be no response from the dead 
there is a response of the soul to this truth, and the 
thought that predominates is that of recognition. 

Another, in speaking of the passage, says : " When 
he uttered the words, ' I shall go to him/ may he not 
have done so under the promptings of the Spirit of in- 
spiration, who, through him, w 7 ould thus convey such 
a lesson of instruction to all succeeding generations 
of the Church as would prove particularly consolatory 
to the faithful when suffering from the decease of 
Christian friends, and be more especially soothing to 
the hearts of pious parents when called on, like the 
Psalmist, to transfer to the heavenly guardianship of 
the chief Shepherd one or more of the lambs of his 
earthly flock ? Thus, through David, the Spirit would 
be telling them that those friends in Christ for whom 
they mourned — whether the sheep of his pasture or 
the lambs of his fold — were not destroyed, but merely 
removed to another and better part of the Lord's pos- 
sessions, where after ' a little season,' they, themselves, 
would be permitted to rejoin them and partake with 
them in a joy which will be without mixture and with- 
out end." 

No, w r e cannot have the lambs that have been taken 
from our fold return to us, but if we are converted, 
becoming like them, w 7 e may join and know them in 



42 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

heaven. Heaven is theirs, and both they and the 
Saviour invite us to enter. An old epitaph expresses 
the thought : 

" Weep not, my mother, weep not, I am blest, 
But must leave heaven if I come to thee ; 
For I am where the weary are at rest, 
And sinners cease from troubling, — Come to me!" 

But our Lord has brought all that pertains to life 
and immortality more fully to light in the Gospel, and 
we now turn to the New Testament to find the brighter 
day of that precious revelation of which we have the 
flushed morning in the Old. 

In the transfiguration scene as recorded by Luke, 
after Jesus had prayed, and his face and garments had 
taken on the sheen of heaven, it is said : " And behold, 
there talked with him two men, which were Moses and 
Elias, who appeared in glory and spake of his decease, 
which he should accomplish at Jerusalem." Observe 
that it is said of these men that they appeared in glory, 
but not without form, and yet not in the dull dress of 
our mortal flesh, and they conversed about an earthly 
transaction ; and Peter, and James, and John, the 
favored three, beheld Christ's glory, until Peter, caught 
up in the ecstasy of it, and in recognition of these 
heavenly visitants, exclaimed : " Master, it is good for 
us to be here; let us make three tabernacles; one for 
Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias, not know- 
ing what he said." 

Moses had ascended from the mount, and the angels 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 43 

had carried him to his secret burial fifteen hundred 
years before, and hundreds of years after that strange 
departure Elijah was born, and finally, like Enoch, he 
was translated, and now who as much as dreams, as 
they are beheld in such dazzling and unearthly fellow- 
ship, that they were ignorant of each other's persons 
and presence. Did that splendid scene turn the por- 
tals of glory aside and give to us some vision of the 
" excellent glory" as we ourselves stand related to it? 
Was it not " heaven opened " sufficiently to the heart 
and thought of mankind to teach them that departed 
men still live as such, that death does not destroy their 
individuality, and through their mutual fellowship 
their interest in Christ's work is magnified? 

Is it not an illustration of the beauty and excellency 
of Christianity, which in light, even here inaccessible 
to the profane and worldly, reveals the character and 
existence of the departed good ? We are left in no 
sad doubt on the subject. It opens the gates of light, 
and kindly reveals to the longing gaze of those who 
at the fall of every twilight count it no calamity that 
they are a day's march nearer home, " the great mul- 
titude which no man can number." It is only honest 
to say that we know little of that bright beyond, imaged 
with such splendor in the Transfiguration, but not be- 
cause we may know nothing, but because of the purity 
and immensity of what is to be known. Every man's 
life and experience become a revelation of heaven as 
they are here transformed into its image. And in this 
scene a mutual communion between the earthly and 



44 KECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

the heavenly is indicated. We have no power certainly 
to commune with spirits as we ordinarily commune with 
one another. Modern spiritualism, or spiritism, is a 
weird, horrid doctrine, full of sham and hypocrisy, and 
without foundation either in reason or in the Scriptures. 
The blessed Bible does not indulge in gossip about the 
better world, and when it opens the radiant portals of 
glory it is not that angels may tell secrets about per- 
sons and fortunes in the spiritual sphere, but that God 
may disclose himself more really to souls, breathe 
more of his grace, and put a bright light on the dark- 
ness of the world. We may have communion with 
the spiritual world, and with the very heart of it ; but 
it is not by any such nonsense as rapping and table- 
moving. It is when we are so possessed with Christ 
and spiritual truth as was Peter at the Transfiguration. 
We degrade communion with the departed when it is 
thought of by any other method than by our own 
spiritual exaltation. 

" How pure at heart and sound in head, 
With what divine affections bold, 
Should be the man whose thought would hold 
An hour's communion with the dead. 

" In vain shalt thou or any call 

The spirits from their golden day, 
Except, like them, thou too canst say, 
My spirit is at peace with all." 

And is it not plain that those glorified ones, who 
have thrown off the limitations that hamper us, know 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 45 

much of the present? What profound interest Moses 
and Elias in this mountain scene manifested in the 
Church ! What does the Apostle mean when he ad- 
monishes us by the fact that "we are compassed about 
by so great a cloud of witnesses ?" Who are these that 
soar away from the heavenly world in holy ministra- 
tion ? 

Dean Alvord, in his Greek Testament, observes on 
this passage : "The words must be taken as distinctly 
so far implying community between the Church tri- 
umphant and the Church below, so that they who have 
entered into the heavenly rest are conscious of what 
passes among ourselves." So, then, this thrilling 
couplet of the poet is not all sentiment: 

" Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth, 
Unseen both when we wake and when we sleep." 

And now, if they know so much about us, about the 
Church, about the great conquest of the cross, can it 
be that they are strangers to one another? And if 
Peter, James, and John, by the transfiguration of their 
own souls into higher spiritual conditions, recognized 
Moses and Elias in this earthly coronation of their 
Lord, will they be unable to do the same when they 
are faultless before the throne? Does not the blessed 
hope of recognition imply it, and will it not be accom- 
plished by that celestial excellence which is to charac- 
terize the glorified body? 

One of the most touching incidents in the life of 
Christ, and one of the tenderest illustrations of his 



46 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

great heart sympathy, was his raising the son of the 
widow of Nam. He was an only son, and his mother 
a widow. He bade her dry her tears, and commanded 
the young man to arise : " And he that was dead sat 
up and began to speak. And he delivered him to 
his mother." Luke 7 : 1,1-16. Was not this some pre- 
figuration of what Jesus will do on the morning of the 
resurrection ? Oh, then what a delivering up to the 
long bereft there will be ! Resurrection means also 
restoration, and why should we put so much emphasis 
on the fact that the heavenly world will be without 
sickness and sorrow, parting and death, if not for the 
conscious fellowship that awaits us there? Death 
blots out the peculiar relationship, but will it quench 
our love and fellowship? Will it make us cold stran- 
gers, our hands unclasped, and our lips sealed forever- 
more to all we once were and loved ? No ; everything 
noble and aspiring in us forbids the thought. I rather 
believe that there will be a glacl conscious greeting, as 
when one returns, from war, or from a long journey. 
Ah, when grace shall have at last brought us to the 
golden threshold, what a welcome the angels will give 
us, and how eager they will be to tell us of what 
awaits us in the cloudless glory. The poet when he 
was farthest from the earth in his meditations caught 
the thought : 

" Welcome to heaven, dear brother, welcome home, 
Welcome to thy inheritance of light ! 
Welcome forever to thy Master's joy! 
Thy work is done ; thy pilgrimage is past ; 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 47 

Thy guardian angel's vigil is fulfilled ; 
Thy parents wait thee in the bowers of bliss ; 
Thy infant babes have woven wreaths for thee ; 
Thy brethren who have entered into rest 
Long for thy coming, and the angel choirs 
Are ready with their symphonies of praise." 

And is not this in keeping with the description of 
our Lord, both of the judgment and of the heavenly 
world ? He speaks of " gathering his own together." 
Mark 13 : 27. He tells us that we shall "sit down 
with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the 
prophets, in the kingdom of God." Matt. 8 : 11 ; Luke 
13 : 28-29. And again, in Luke 22 : 30, how beautiful 
his words, how fraught with hope, and how charged 
with a conscious fellowship: "Ye may eat and drink 
at my table in my kingdom." And who that has ever 
thought of heaven, or rested in the hope of its blessed- 
ness when weary or sad, has not thought of our Lord's 
words in John's Gospel, uttered when he was already 
walking in the shadow of death, and but a step from 
the brightening beams of resurrection glory. 

"In my Father's house are many mansions. . . . 
I go to prepare a place for you, and I will come again 
and receive you unto myself; that where I am there 
ye may be also." John 14 : 1-3. Mark the personality 
of his language; the retention of identity, and the joy 
of conscious fellowship. Consider the whole spirit and 
aim of these Scriptures, and is there not in all of them 
a strong hint of recognition, as if the Holy Ghost re- 
garded a truth so inwoven with our redeemed humanity 



48 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

as certainly true, and not requiring more explicit 
statement? Deny the doctrine, and you must violate 
the tenderness and beauty of these Scriptures, and put 
a chilly veil between spirits that were kindred by na- 
ture and grace on earth, and the bright glory of the 
Christian's heaven is sullied by the grim shadow of self- 
ishness. In all these Scriptures and many others, it 
will be noticed there is a recognition of the social ele- 
ment in man's nature. Neither on earth nor in heaven 
does it seem to be God's order for man to be alone. 
The desire for fellowship, for personal communion and 
association, has often been made a victim, but is not a 
result, of the fall; it is a gift of God, and characterizes 
the highest order of being. And surely this love of 
companionship will not be struck from our being in 
that world where God and the angels are the beautiful 
and constant illustrations of it. Oh, can it be that that 
cruel,, selfish misery, — no fond, sympathetic, elevating 
communion, — which has so often made this world cold 
and cheerless to many a weary heart, shall destroy one 
of our most delightful thoughts, and brightest hopes 
of heaven? No, the thought offends the better angels 
of our nature, and seems a reproach upon Him who 
when on earth sanctified homes with His presence, and 
now waits to greet His own at the jubilee supper. 
Upon these and other passages the Church has long 
since founded the hope of recognition, and accorded to 
it the dignity of a doctrine. It is a sublime thought 
that we shall meet in that higher fellowship, stripped 
of all that mars present communion; but why should 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 49 

we attribute less to sovereign grace, since it so sweetly 
blends hearts and lives here ? And what strength of 
argument the thought gathers in the impulse it pro- 
vides to make men seek after the image of Christ, and 
what a flood of substantial comfort it should pour upon 
the lonely stricken heart, whose hopes, like withered 
leaves in autumn, have been torn from the object on 
which they fastened and have fallen into the grave, but 
only to take on brighter hues and a permanent reality 
in that world where there is neither blight nor blot. 

There is a remarkable passage in Paul's first letter 
to the Corinthians, which clearly sets forth the idea 
that the future state is a self-conscious state. "Now 
I know in part ; but then shall I know even as also I 
am known." 1 Cor. 13: 12. The passage teaches that 
God knows us thoroughly, and that as He knows us we 
shall know. There is not to be less of consciousness, 
but more. I am sure we shall know ourselves better 
than ever, and shall we be ignorant of our friends? 
Knowledge is just as much a characteristic of the 
future state as ignorance is of this. It might be very 
pleasing for the hopeless man to believe that when he 
is thrust beyond the veil and must confront eternity 
he shall lose all memory of the past and drop into 
eternal forgetfulness or annihilation ; but man's own 
nature brands such a thought as absurd, and the Word 
of God positively denies it. We shall not only know, 
but we shall even know our character, our destiny, as 
the Infinite knows them ; and this whether good or bad, 
saved or lost. For the Christian the thought thrills 



50 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

with delight, but for the man of no faith, and of no 
spiritual apprehension and hope, it is fearful enough, 
and must constitute one of the most bitter ingredients 
in the cup of his woe. Dr. Shedd, in speaking on this 
Scripture, says : " Shall I think, shall I feel, shall I 
know ? " " In answering this question in the affirma- 
tive, without any hesitation or ambiguity, the Apostle 
Paul has in reality cleared up most of the darkness 
that overhangs the future state. The structure of the 
spiritual body and the fabric of the immaterial world 
are matters of secondary importance, and may be left 
without explanation, provided only the rational mind 
of man be distinctly informed that it shall not sleep in 
unconsciousness, and that the immortal spark shall not 
become such stuff as dreams are made of." Clearly 
we are taught that we shall know, and so far as our 
persons are concerned the measure of our capacity in 
knowledge shall be the measure of God's capacity. 
And this is the mystery which human nature has long 
desired to have solved, " Shall I know beyond ?" The 
Apostle's answer is conclusive, and it must be impor- 
tant, for this answer contains for all mankind the 
very substance of heaven or hell. And knowing so 
much of self and destiny, shall we not know one 
another? If there be this keen sense of knowledge 
with respect to moral conduct and condition, will 
there be ignorance of persons and no identity ? Will 
we fail to recognize those who stand by our side, and 
some of whom we must know we either helped toward 
or hindered from reaching heaven ? This passage alone 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 51 

would seem to settle the whole question and leave no 
room for doubt whatever. The more I study this de- 
lightful subject the more does a belief of it seem to me 
not only consistent with all the noble elements and 
aspirations of our nature, but as well with all God's 
most gracious interposition in our behalf, and I cannot 
see how the hope in those who are truly Christians can 
fail to take on the vigor and assurance of a positive 
faith, and so enable them to see in it that one pearl of 
which heaven's gate is made, and to hear in it the 
melody of that joy and praise which rises and rolls 
there forever and ever. 

There is a beautiful Scripture in Paul's second letter 
to the Corinthians, which has been used in support of 
the doctrine of recognition. He is speaking to those 
to whom he ministered in the Gospel: " Ye have- ac- 
knowledged that we are your rejoicing, even as ye also 
are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus." 2 Cor. 1 : 14. 
This passage has its parallel in Paul's first letter to 
the Thessalonians. The Apostle having in mind the 
trials of the ministry, which he experienced as few do 
now, and then looking upon those who have been saved 
and comforted through his instrumentality, says: "For 
what is our hope, or joy, or- crown of rejoicing? Are 
not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ 
at His coming? For ye are our glory and joy." 1 
Thess. 2 : 19, 20. Paul has a pleasing prospect before 
him ; he will remember the pastoral relation in that 
world where the blast of persecution cannot strike 
him ; his heaven, his eternity will be brightened by 



52 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

those of whose presence he shall be conscious, and who 
shall rise up to call him blessed, giving him renewed 
and constant occasion to bring tributes of praise to the 
feet of his Lord, and then will he realize more than 
here how unworthy of mention were all his earthly 
trials, now swallowed up by the glory revealed in him. 
Who shall tell his joy as the ages roll away, and he 
continues to be greeted by his children and fellow- 
laborers in the Gospel ? What a great company has 
already gathered about him ! how radiant in their 
spotless robes ! how triumphant as they shout and 
wave their palms ! and, following the lead of that illus- 
trious saint, in what unison and rapture they cast their 
crowns at the feet once pierced and blood-soiled, but 
now healed, and "like unto fiue brass, as if they burned 
in a furnace !" And does not the Apostle most plainly 
root the "hope/' and "joy," and "crown of rejoicing/' 
of which he speaks, in the fact of recognition ? Does 
he not mean to say that he shall meet and know the 
saints in the perfect state, and that he is more than 
content to wait and endure until the coming King 
shall bring them into that conscious fellowship so 
splendidly symbolized in the meeting of Moses and 
Elias with their Lord on the Mount of Transfigura- 
tion ? 

The same thought is presented in the Apocalypse. 
There is recognition of different peoples redeemed by 
Christ, and who through bloody dust and ways of toil 
and tribulation have reached the celestial city. 

And what a greeting that will be when God's min- 



RECOGNITIOX IN HEAVEN. 53 

isters aud the children of the covenant come together, 
and standing faultless before the throne chime their 
voices in the shout of redeeming love ! Ah, then, 
many an obscure but faithful servant of Christ, who 
had no fame and less appreciation than he deserved, 
will find his heart leap for joy, as to his glad sur- 
prise he recognizes this and that trophy of his minis- 
try, and learns, what it was difficult for him sometimes 
to believe on earth, that his labor of love was not in 
vain in the Lord. 

Mr. Bickersteth makes beautiful allusion to the 
thought in his poem in these words : 

" In amaze 
I asked what meant such gratulation there, 
And one of many answered : l From thy month 
We heard of Jesus' love, and thine the hand 
That led us to his feet.' It was enough ; 
For all the Parent and the Pastor woke 
Within me ; all the holy memories 
Of bygone days flowed in a refluent tide 
Over my soul once more. Some I had known 
From rosy dawn of childhood. 
Some I had shepherded, yea, many. And 
Some in after years had poured the burden 
Of a wounded spirit into mine. 
And others, dying, heard me read of him 
Who on the cross for mercy cried to Christ, 
Heard, and themselves believed. All these I knew, 
And quick as light their story flashed on me. 
But in that group of filial spirits came 
Many I knew not — part of that great store 
Of unsuspected treasure heaven conceals. 
And they too poured on me beatitudes." 



54 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

Does it not seem that there has been too much taking 
it for granted that the Scriptures teach nothing on this 
subject and not enough of prayerful study to catch 
the bright glimpses, sometimes beaming with beautiful 
distinctness from the sacred page, and sometimes 
partly concealed amid the folds of its heavenly dra- 
pery? I am pleased to know, and to tell the sad and 
lonely everywhere, that faith in the doctrine of recog- 
nition is not inconsistent with either duty or belief, 
and that the accumulated light of God's Word is no 
faint imperceptible ray, but a burst of glory that will 
one day dazzle the eyes that now only see it through a 
glass darkly. But turn to another passage in the 
Apostle's epistle to the Thessalonians : " But I would 
not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning 
them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as 
others, which have no hope. For if we believe that 
Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which 
sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." And farther 
on he says : " Wherefore comfort one another with 
these words." 1 Thess. 4:13-18. Paul is speaking 
for the consolation of such as have been bereaved. 
He tells them that there is hope in their sorrow, and 
that their departed ones shall be gathered to Him in 
whom they now sleep, and that all together they shall 
" ever be with the Lord." 

The plain teaching of the passage is reunion, fellow- 
ship, recognition. And so the great thought goes on 
accumulating until in the majestic splendors of the 
Apocalypse the seer not only sees, but distinguishes those 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 55 

who were redeemed from the earth. " After this I 
beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could 
number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and 
tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, 
clothed with white robes and with palms in their hands, 
and cried with a loud" voice, saying, Salvation to our 
God, which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the 

Lamb And one of the elders answered, saying 

unto me, What are these which are arrayed with white 
robes ? and whence came they ? And I said unto him, 
Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they 
Avhich came out of great tribulation, and have washed 
their robes and made them white in the blood of the 
Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God 
and serve him day and night in his temple." Rev. 7 : 
9-15. 

This is the society of the redeemed, recognized by 
the elder as distinct from the angels, and joined to- 
gether in the glad ministries of their heavenly home. 
And shall these know their Lord, know their blessed 
duties and privileges, know whence they came, and 
through what agony of a Saviour's cross, and what 
trial of personal conflict and pain, and not know one 
another? 

Reason joins the best of us in heart and life to repel 
the thought, and the argument from Scripture in favor 
of the doctrine, instead of being scant, is to us ample 
and conclusive. The whole Bible breathes the spirit 
of the doctrine, and the literature of all ages, both 
prose and poetic, carries its radiance and pours it on 



56 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

the gloom of stricken hearts, until devout Christian 
faith wrests comfort from the grave, and sings songs in 
the night. 

But there is another side to this revelation. I have 
not desired to mar this blessed picture with its weird 
shadow by any detailed notice." It is just as true of 
the wicked as of the righteous, and just as clearly sus- 
tained in the human constitution and by the Word of 
God. Their future state, no less than the righteous, is 
one of self-consciousness; the difference is in its character 
and consequences. They shall be endowed with the 
faculty of recognition, and it is no mercy to them, nor 
advantage to the righteous, to withhold the warning. 
And what a vision and what an eternal sting in that 
world of keen consciousness to look at and recognize 
the Saviour that was slighted on earth, or to have for a 
companion, perchance, the very one you have wronged, 
it may be hopelessly ruined ! 

What an appeal to the unconverted to correct their 
relations with God and men here, for there, unchange- 
ably, they shall know as they are known. Then they 
will never forget why they are what they are, and where 
they are. God save any reader of these pages such a 
vision. And now let men heed the warning of that 
awfulest cry that the broken heart of lost humanity 
will ever utter : " Hide us from the face/' from the 
sweet, loving, benignant face, " of him," but to the 
guilty soul fierce and awful in its very beauty and 
holiness, " and from the wrath of the Lamb." 

I must remind you in closing that it won't be long 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 57 

until the truth will need no demonstration of mine. 
We shall know it all and forever. 

We are rapidly approaching the mysterious curtain 
that trembles before us. A day more, in an hour in- 
deed, and some of us may be on the other side of it. 
Suddenly it may burst upon us like the sunlight when 
the hand of the tempest has turned aside the black 
folds of the cloud. Oh, that the thought may now be 
as sweet to us as a chime from a distant tower. Oh, 
that Christ now and then may be so much to us that the 
prospect will comfort and inspire us, and when the hour 
has come, amid farewells below and the hone of union 
above, may the victor's shout be ours, "0 death, 
where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" 

And then in a moment how blessedly changed the 
scene ! Now the doubt, the struggle, and the parting ; 
and then the clear revelation, the bliss of reunion and 
recognition — a perfected heaven forever and ever! 

" I count the hope no day-dream of the mind, 

No vision fair of transitory hue ; 

The souls of those whom once on earth we knew, 
And loved, and walked with in communion kind, 
Departed hence, again in heaven to find. 

Such hope to nature's sympathies is true ; 

And such we deem the Holy Word to view 
Unfolds ; an antidote for grief designed ; 
One drop from comfort's well. 

Nor shall we find more joy for aught in that celestial seat, 

Save from God's presence, than again to greet 
Each other's spirits, there to dwell combined 
In brotherhood of love." 



58 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 



CHAPTER III. 

" It cannot be ; each hope, each fear, 
That lights the eye or clouds the brow, 
Proclaims there is a happier sphere 
Than this bleak world that holds us now. 
There is a voice which sorrow hears 
When heaviest weighs life's galling chain ; 
? Tis heaven that whispers, ' Dry your tears, 
The pure in heart shall meet again.' " 

That there are mysteries involved in our future life 
all who care to think of it well know. But mysteries, 
what are they but as the earth at twilight, or in the 
thick dark night, speeding on to the all-revealing 
brightness of the morning. Mystery is the soil in 
which revelation has its roots. " Immortality is the 
mystery of death ; heaven is the mystery of earth." 
Our embarrassment comes of our being compelled to 
contemplate these mysteries under the limitations of a 
finite sphere and with finite endowments. Our best 
view of the things which are unseen is through a glass 
darkly. " Now we know in part." But as a polished 
surface will reflect the light, and throw it beyond it- 
self, so there are great truths which are not only dis- 
tinctly revealed to our rninds, but have become a part 
of the conscious experience of our souls, which seem to 
reflect other truths; and to maintain harmony, and to 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 59 

preserve relationships which are imperishable, we ac- 
cept much that comes to us by analogy or reflection. 
The nature and functions of one truth sometimes pro- 
vide argument for the support of another. So here. 

Sitting in my study a few days ago, with my mind 
intent upon the subject of these pages, the sound of 
sweet voices, as from the better world, stole upon my 
ear. As the delightful cadences fell upon my soul the 
effect was irresistible. I threw up my window and 
heard the children of a neighboring school singing 
" Sweet By-and-by." 

""We shall sing, on that beautiful shore, 
The melodious song of the blest, 
And our spirits shall sorrow no more, 
Not a sigh for the blessing of rest." 

And I thought, as the sweet melody chimed with 
my feelings, what a confused medley is much that is 
woven with the songs of Zion, and much that has been 
written for the consolation of weary and bruised souls, 
if there is to be no familiar conscious fellowship be- 
tween those who have ascended to glory and those who 
hope to meet them by-and-by. If there be no recog- 
nition of friends in heaven, what a waste of thought, 
of holiest love, and of highest hope there has been in 
much that has been written. But many of the sweet- 
est hymns of the saints of all ages, and many of the 
most charming thoughts of the noblest minds are saved 
from such a reproach by the existence of fixed truths 
which seem to demand this. Unquestionably there is 



60 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

great disparity between the heavenly world and this, 
and between the heavenly character and ours, and yet 
there are some points of unity, so that we may not 
simply anticipate, but really experience and enjoy, 
some of the excellencies that compose the bliss of 
heaven. The Scriptures abundantly confirm this fact. 
What the eye cannot see, nor the ear hear, nor even 
the heart conceive, the spirit is ready to reveal to such 
as are of like mind. And it is reasonable and scrip- 
tural to affirm that these points of unity, these heavenly 
excellencies which grace has wrought in us, will not 
be destroyed at death, but, inwoven with the life of the 
soul, they will survive and be perfected in glory. 

We believe in the communion of the saints. It is 
a truth of the Gospel, and it becomes an experience, an 
approximation to Christ in the human heart through 
the grace of the Holy Spirit, and is necessary to all 
just claim to Christian character. And can it be that 
what is essential to Christian character here will con- 
stitute no element of saintly excellence and enjoyment 
•in heaven ? Or can there be joyous, unmarred com- 
munion without recognition ? Does not that sublime 
perfection of saintly character which the Word of God 
reveals as the ultimate achievement of grace demand 
recognition ? 

With the thought upon those whom we have laid in 
the grave, and of that morning of reunion for which 
we hope, it is asked, " With what body do they come?" 
and the Apostle answers, as if he had read the revela- 
tion in the glory of the third heaven, " It is sown in 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 61 

corruption, it is raised in incorruption ; it is sown in 
dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, 
it is raised in power ; it is sown a natural body, it is 
raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and 

there is a spiritual body For this corruptible 

must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on 
immortality." 1 Cor. 15: 42-44, 53. 

And how full is the Apocalypse of rapt words, every 
one of them reflecting the glory and echoing the music 
of heaven, and telling of that perfection which awaits 
the redeemed on high, not simply as separate individ- 
uals, but as a great company, a heavenly commu- 
nity. All those things which indicate our limitation 
and reveal our troubled experience are to be done 
away, and what grace has given us and made us is not 
to be left behind, but perfected there. And observe that 
the delightful thought and sweet spirit of recognition 
must permeate that whole blessed existence which be- 
longs to the glory that is to be revealed. The moment 
we abandon it we find confusion, and that perfection 
involved in the final destiny of man, and of which the 
Scriptures speak so thrillingly, is sacrificed. It is dis- 
tinctly stated that w T e are to have a body, and reason- 
ably so, for a body is essential to our personality. It 
is to be a spiritual, not a gross material body, the 
victim of moral taint and physical pain and waste ; 
and yet a body, a perfect spiritual body. Heaven is 
not the abode of ethereal essences. The great re- 
demption extends its saving ministry not only to the 
soul, but to the body also ; Christ came to redeem our 



62 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

humanity, — the whole man — and nothing will perish but 
sin, and such elements of our nature as are exclusively 
adapted to the present constitution. Flesh and blood 
cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven ; but a spiritual 
glorified body can. Jesus did not disrobe himself of 
the body when He ascended to heaven. Doubtless as 
it went up it took on more than the superhuman 
brightness of the transfiguration. The promise is that 
the redeemed shall possess a body like unto Christ's 
glorious body. " We shall be like Him, for we shall see 
Him as He is." The late Dr. Adams observes : " It is 
called a spiritual body. Not that it is intangible, im- 
palpable, invisible, as spirit. But so refined is it from 
all grossness, endowed with such power and life, that 
no word could so well express its quality as that which 
God has chosen and employed — a spiritual body." 
And in the endowment of that Christly image there 
will not be wanting anything that will contribute to 
its happiness and greatness. The faculties and the 
functions, the joys and the relationship of that better 
being, except so far as they have only adaption to this 
material sphere, will be retained and glorified there. 
The Apostle says : " As we have borne the image of the 
earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." 
1 Cor. 15 : 49. And are we not to bear the image of the 
heavenly, and to have our true humanity glorified and 
so exalted that we shall not be " composite creatures, 
half earth and half souh," but wholly of that which will 
place us beside the infinite God, and in direct rela- 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 63 

tion to all that constitutes both the character and occu- 
pation of heaven ? And this heavenly being, is it not 
our endowment of intelligence, our social capacities, 
our charm for duty and right, and our unlimited 
power to serve in them, and to adore and love God 
the centre of all? But would the saints enjoy any 
such perfection, did they go about their ministries 
without any blessed fellowship with or knowledge of 
one another? 

No, since this communion is a source of such pleas- 
ure and profit here, one of the sweetest, most comforting 
charms of our life, and that, too, which constitutes one 
of the truest and most pleasing revelations of our union 
with Christ, and of our better being; and since all the 
intimations of our perfection in glory seem to demand 
this excellence, w T e may feel sure that we shall not be 
robbed of it in that world where the sad breaches be- 
tween dear friends shall be healed forever. Think of 
all the guests at the marriage supper of the Lamb being 
strangers ! Is that the perfection that awaits the 
noblest excellencies of our nature, and upon which 
grace has not only poured her benedictions of light and 
beauty, but over which she has lifted her bow of prom- 
ise? The truth will not suffer us to think it. The dis- 
tinct promises of our Lord relating to the perfected 
issues of redemption, are that the saints of all ages shall 
come together in glory, as they never could on earth — 
in social harmony and joy. And what a meeeting that 
will be ! 



64 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

" Oh, with what congratulations 
Throng thy gates the festive nations ! 
What the warmth of their embracing ! 
What the gems thy wall enchasing ! 
Through that city's streets are wending 
Holy throngs, their anthems blending." 

Oh, as our struggling thought tries to catch some 
glimpses of that paradise which sin has never cursed, 
that the wayward and hopeless might struggle to touch 
the hem of His garment, without whom heaven is a 
delusion, and that we who have confessed Him might 
honor Him with a love more worthy of Him, and that 
would indicate a longing desire in us to sit with Him 
and the ransomed by and by at the festival of His final 
triumph ! The travellers that now tread the paths that 
lead to the city of God are few and scattered ; but a 
great throng, we read, an innumerable company, will 
at last come to swell the fellowship of the skies. I am 
sure we are only competent to contemplate such^l theme 
as this when we have a good hope through grace, that 
we shall be of the number by and by. 

But into that perfection of which I have spoken 
enters the faculty and grace of love. We know how 
much it is in the moral and religious nature here, 
how much in the character and purpose of God. 
There can be no noble attainment on earth, no per- 
fection in heaven, without it. Love communicated 
and moved by grace is the fulfilling of the law. 
Love is the test of Christian discipleship. Love is 
the assurance of Christian faith and hope. Love is 
the chief and imperishable grace. Love is the sub- 



EECOGNITION IX HEAVEN. 65 

limest reach of rational existence. " God is love." 
And this love that was heard in the cries, and that 
mingled with the blood of a Saviour's cross, predom- 
inates over all other love in the child of grace, and 
gives to fellowship on earth a benediction that at once 
implants the desire for and* confirms the belief of its 
existence in heaven. 

Christians are to love one another as such, and this 
love finds expression in, and is magnified by, acquaint- 
ance and fellowship here, and if we are not perfect in 
it, often faulty and cold, is it not the evidence that we 
are going on unto perfection, and can that be perfection 
in heaven from which it is excluded ? 

No ; that love which, irrespective of all minor dif- 
ferences, binds all Christian hearts together, and leads 
them to seek, and causes trhem to be happiest and holi- 
est in personal fellowship, is to carry over, and in purer 
motive, in a warmer intensity, and a holy purpose it 
will find its perfection there. 

Then, indeed, it will be love without any touch of 
dissimulation, that perfect love which casteth out fear 
and every other evil. And then, not less because it is 
lavished upon the saints, and those we loved below, 
but more than ever it will go out supreme to God and 
the Lamb. I If human nature loved what it should, 
and as it should, it would have in it the element of a 
perfectly happy society. And just this is to be the 
heavenly condition. Love, pure, unsullied, and un- 
selfish love is to prevail, and in this do we have the 
ideal of the perfection of mankind. Bernard, in his 

5 



66 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

Progress of Doctrine, says: "The inherent vice of hu- 
man society lies in the depravity of human nature. Tf 
that were healed and transmuted into universal right- 
eousness and love, the internal happiness and perfec- 
tion would be secured. And they are to be secured 
in that city where the people shall be all righteous, 
and where love shall never fail. To the formation of 
those habits of mind the teaching of God is now visi- 
bly directed, and men are trained on the grounds and 
motives of the Gospel to love one another. Love is 
ever represented as the end of the commandment, the 
highest attainment of man, the completion of his edu- 
cation by God. And no wonder it is so represented, 
since the present prepares the future, and that future 
is to be a state of society — ' a city which is compact 
together.' ; Farther on, in-speaking of the heavenly 
community, he observes : " Its fabric and scenery are 
described in symbolic language, glowing with all pre- 
cious and glorious things ; nor do we desire an inter- 
preter who will tell us what the symbols severally 
represent in the future details of the glorified society. 
.... I only dwell upon the fact that it is a city, 
which stands before us as the final home of mankind. 
If we think only of our individual portion we miss 
the completeness of Scripture in its provisions for the 
completeness of man. If individual blessedness were 
the highest thought of humanity, it might have been 
sufficient to have restored the lost garden of Eden, and 
to have left the inhabitants of the new earth to dwell 
safely in its wilderness and sleep in its woods 



. RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 67 

Not so does the revelation of God inform the expecta- 
tions" of those who receive it. Other systems evade the 
demands of the highest tendencies of man ; this pro- 
vides that they shall be realized. It decrees not only 
the individual happiness but the corporate perfection 
of man, and closes the book of its prophecy by assur- 
ing the children of the living God that He hath pre- 
pared for them a city." Then heaven is to be a com- 
munity, a society of souls, kindred and knit together 
by a love and in a ministry that will challenge in them 
a perfection that is spotless. 

But whilst the conditions of our Christian faith im- 
pel us here to love all, and especially those of the 
household of faith, it only becomes real, and respon- 
sive, and blessed to those who are known to us. The 
present constitution limits our acquaintance here, but 
in the perfect state that limitation will not exist, unless 
recognition be a myth, and then how can perfect love 
have its sway, for how can we love, consciously love, 
those we do not know? And how can the heavenly 
state be a society, and how can there be that perfection 
of love and service for which we are taught to hope, 
without that mutual recognition so clearly implied in 
these conditions ? It seems plain enough that not only 
will the faculty of love prevail in heaven, but that 
perfection of it so clearly implied in mutual fellowship 
will be manifest, and we shall not wander lonely and 
aimless in glory, but in company with the saints, and 
we shall enjoy that conscious blessed fellowship of 
\v T hich we have here the dim foretaste. 



68 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

" Would He," I have read it in a volume trans- 
lated from the German, "whose name is Love, who 
binds magnetically together distant worlds and stars, 
and who has bestowed affection as the sweetest of His 
gifts on all sentient beings under the sun ; would He 
have ordained it so, that the better life beyond the 
grave should commence with the annihilation of that 
true love which is the universal law of creation ? No, 
no ; faithful souls, in time and in eternity, commune 
lovingly with each other, and join hands above the 
grave." We still belong to our loved ones in heaven, 
and they belong to us, and when the portal parts to 
our advancing step we shall not know them less, nor 
love them less, now that we have come into the full 
blaze of revelation, Oh, methinks, there must be a 
mutual greeting of love when saints who have been 
long parted meet in heaven. Yes, — 

" They sin who tell us love can die ; 
With life all other passions fly — 
All others are but vanity. 

* -x- -x- * 

Earthly, those passions of the earth, 
They perish where they have their birth, 
But love is indestructible. 
Its holy flame forever burneth, 
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth ; 
Too oft on earth a troubled guest, 
At times deceived, at times oppressed, 
It here is tried and purified, 
Then hath in heaven its perfect rest. 
It soweth here in toil and care, 
But the harvest-time of love is there." 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 69 

Mother, as the twilight closes about you, or the 
autumn leaves cover the grave in which lie your 
hopes, or as some new grief wrings your heart, you 
often look away toward the bright stars, as if to catch 
some glimpse of those who have gone and left you 
alone, and whom you loved here and regret you did 
not love more ; aud you wonder whether you shall 
meet, and know, and love them in heaven. It is the 
longing of the dutiful child as she remembers, or stands 
at the green mound under which her mother sleeps. 
It is the holy tie which binds the lonely loving heart 
of many a bereft husband or wife. Yes, a great multi- 
tude breathe it toward heaven in their holiest thoughts 
and deepest sighs. 

And does not the comforting Gospel allow me to 
tell you that if your loved ones have been gathered 
to the Lord, and that if you love Him before all, and 
your own the more because of it, that you shall be 
gathered to them ? How could we think of the saints 
in light, rid of all the ills of life, without such loving 
fellowship? We do not part on earth only to part 
the more when we have come to the crown and palm. 
No, it is at least one strain in the anthem the blessed 
Gospel has woven for us, that when the Master calls 
for us, we shall go : 

" Where the bond is never severed, 

Partings, claspings, sobs, and moans, 
Midnight waking, twilight weeping, 
Heavy noontide, all are done. 



70 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

Where the child has found its mother, 
Where the mother finds her child ; 

Where dear families are gathered, 
That were scattered on the wild. 

Where we find the joy of loving 

As we never loved before, 
Loving on unchilled, unhindered, 

Loving once, and never more ! " 

But there are other facts involved in our future 
destiny that demand recognition. That consumma- 
tion so thrilling and delightful to the righteous is to 
t)Q heralded by the resurrection. 

The doctrine is not without mystery, but in nature 
and in His Word God has been abundant in such 
revelation as should expel our doubts and challenge 
our faith. It is God who is to raise the dead, and 
hence with us it is not to be thought a thing incredible. 
And notice, it is to be a resurrection, not a creation. 
" Thy brother shall rise again/' is the sweet message 
which our Lord speaks at every broken hearthstone, 
and to those sorrowing ones whose conversation is in 
heaven. 

" In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the 
last trump ; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead 
shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." 
That one for whom we weep and of whom we speak in 
the sanctity of the home circle, my brother, my sister, 
my parents, my angel wife or devoted husband, my 
dear child, my loved companion, shall rise, the same 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 71 

conscious personality from whom I have been parted 
so long, nor shall we be strangers in that marvellous 
transfiguration. The conscious knowing power that 
loved me and spoke to me here, shall love and know 
me there. The face may have been marred here with 
many a sorrow, furrowed with many a care, quite 
shrivelled by the scorching of disease or the wasting 
of age, but I will not know it less when, like the fresh 
flower that blooms with the morning, I see it in the 
glory-flush of the resurrection. 

" Tho' then thy cheek with deathless bloom be sheen, 
And rays of splendor wreath thy sunlike brow, 

That change I deem shall sever not between 
Thee and thy former self; nor disallow 

That love's tried eyes discern thee through the screen 
Of glory then, as of corruption now." 

If we might adopt the suggestion of analogy, what 
a tendency to reunion there is in nature. Here we 
have the constant miracle. And I think, as I gaze 
upon this wonder, that what God has united in the 
rational creature, and made to distinguish him here, 
He will reunite above. In God's creation there is a 
division and a union of things as in the family ; they 
adhere, and when separated find each other again. It 
is a fundamental principle in creation, and the pre- 
ventive of confusion. Light blends with light. The 
water rises to the sky, the gift of ocean, lake, and 
river, but it descends again in rain and dew, so finding 
its original source. 



72 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

And if such a law reigns on earth, why not in the 
higher realm ? 

A German writer speaking of this principle of affin- 
ity says : " Can we suppose that it rules less in the 
world of the higher spirits, where that which in lifeless 
things is but a vague impulse is raised and ennobled 
into a conscious sentiment? In that world where dwells 
God, the source of ail love, where his laws and his 
works are but the results of love? It is true that the 
form in which the beloved being became dear to me 
on earth rests in the grave. But in reality it was not 
this perishable form that I loved, but the imperisha- 
ble spirit ; and the veil which surrounded the lovely 
soul was only dear to me because of its connection 
with the angel spirit whom it concealed. The veil has 
fallen, but the angel lives." And, now, shall there be 
union, and will I meet and recognize the one whose outer 
form, in which I knew him, is changed ? I still recog- 
nize the plant after it has taken on the coronation of 
bloom. And, now, concerning the spirits of our loved 
ones let the Holy Ghost speak : " For if we believe that 
Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep 
in Jesus will God bring with Him." 1 Thess. 4 : 14. 
" Then shall I know, even as I also am known." Yes, 
departed loved ones, our names, it may be, written on 
the same page of the book of life, united here in 
Christian communion, we shall not be divided in 
heaven. You have laid by the dusty armor, and 
entered upon the rest of triumph ; it is not for us to 
summon you back, but to go to you by the same way 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 73 

of a Saviour's love and agony ; that is the order of the 
reunion, and may God help us to render ourselves 
worthy of such a delightful event in the perfection of 
our immortality. 

And the blessed thought is constantly going forward 
to full and final realization. Tired pilgrims are hasten- 
ing to rest, and long- parted ones, laying their crowns 
at the feet of Him whose love has wrought it all, are 
being united in a fellowship never to be broken. As 
the poet beautifully sings : 

" Thus heaven is gathering one by one, in its capacious breast, 
All that is pure and permanent, and beautiful and blest ; 
The family is scattered yet, though' of one home and heart, 
Part militant in earthly gloom, in heavenly glory part ; 
But who can tell the rapture when the circle is complete, 
And all the children, scattered now, before the Father meet ? 
One fold — one Shepherd — one employ — one universal home !" 

Recognition also seems necessary to the retention 
and growth of knowledge. 

In the present sphere, growth in grace is growth in 
knowledge. It is the development of the spiritual 
faculties, and in this the acquisition of spiritual intel- 
ligence and experience, and the farther we advance 
here in spiritual progress the better we apprehend one 
another. But in God's arrangement, if we were lone 
strangers, if it were not for our community of spiritual 
interest and our Christian fellowship, this growth 
would be very seriously interfered with, for our graces 
must exercise themselves in duties and relationships 
that imply and demand acquaintance. 



74 PRECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

And if we are ignorant of one another in heaven, 
then how much, and what precious knowledge gained 
here, must be lost. But it seems that we shall know 
vastly more in the better world, and that growth in 
knowledge is one of the sublime occupations of that 
blissful abode. " For we know (now) in part, and we 
prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is 
come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 
. . . For now we see through a glass darkly ; but then 
face to face : now I know in part ; but then shall I 
know even as also I am known." 1 Cor. 13:9, 10, 12. 

The contrast with respect to knowledge, between the 
present and the future, is plainly drawn in this Scrip- 
ture. 

Here there is limitation, there infinitude. Of noth- 
ing, I am sure, cau we be more painfully conscious 
here than our limitation inspiritual knowledge. And 
this is explained in the fact that this knowledge comes 
not in any abundance of revelation we have, for we 
certainly have much (but of what avail to the multi- 
tude?), but it comes of the growth of the soul in the 
spirit and truth of the revelation we have. It is the 
pure in heart who see God, and are able to compre- 
hend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, 
and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ 
which passeth knowledge. Sir Isaac Newton knew 
more when on his knees he adored the God of the uni- 
verse than when he swept over the heavens with his 
mighty intellect. Paul knew more when he exclaimed, 
" I know whom J have believed ;" or, " Oh ! the depth 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 75 

of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of 
God !" than when he confounded the Grecians at Ath- 
ens. And this character of knowledge is to character- 
ize and employ us in the better world. There will be 
nothing in that pure and holy life to keep us at disad- 
vantage in acquiring truth, nothing to repel its light 
as it pours its flood upon us. Then there will be a 
relish for knowledge, against which our fallen nature 
often makes protest, and nothing will satisfy it there 
but infinite holiness. Here we reach after it, but with 
a short arm ; but there we shall touch its very centre 
and feel every throb of its living heart. The mind 
will be untrammelled, and how vast and majestic will 
be the sweep of its power. Mysteries that now baffle 
and bewilder us will then dissolve before us as does 
the simple page to the cultured intellect. The word 
ignorance will never be heard in heaven. The little 
child the angels one day bore away from your home, 
and that has now ceased to wonder at sight of its 
beaming face imaged in the glassy sea, how you might 
well now sit at its feet and learn heavenly knowledge. 
It knows as it was known. The process of intellectual 
recovery which Jesus began in His redemptive ministry 
here shall be perfected there, " where the last film of 
darkness shall be removed, the last veil of ignorance 
withdrawn, and the ransomed mind shall see ' face to 
face' in the immediate and intuitive perception of un- 
mixed and unclouded truth." 

Bereaved one, as you have thought of your dead un- 
til your eyes swam in tears, and your sensitive memory 



76 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

disclosed its sacred record until you almost felt your 
loved one sitting beside you, you have doubtless won- 
dered what is his image, and what is he doing in the 
blessed land whither he has gone ? You knew him 
here, for he was yours, inwoven with your life, so that 
nothing human can fill his place ; but shall I know 
him there? is the query that often haunts you. Is it 
not seen that that is a spiritual realm, and that those 
who happily have already entered upon it are spiritual 
beings, and that not a little knowledge, but vast knowl- 
edge, is characteristic of that world ? And, now, is it 
not enough ? shall not the spiritual apprehend the 
spiritual, and shall not the saints know one another 
in heaven? If not, how shall they unravel the sublime 
mysteries of God, the great deep of His grace, and the 
wealth of His glory? Will there be growth in all 
holy knowledge, and no recognition of the saints in 
light? no blessed conscious fellowship among those 
whom God has redeemed and brought to the mansions 
prepared to spend an eternity ? 

The thought would turn heaven into a place of self- 
ish seclusion, and quench one of the brightest beams in 
the sun of its happiness. No — 

" If saints each mutual joy feel here below, 
When they each other's heavenly foretastes know, — 
What joys transport them at each other's sight, 
When they shall meet in the empyrean height ! 
Friends e'en in heaven one happiness would miss, 
Should they not know each other when in bliss." 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 77 

Finally, the intelligent and comprehensive study of 
God's providence demands recognition. Heaven is a 
place and" a condition of wonderful and fruitful ac- 
tivity. There is no rest by reason of any infirmity in 
the saints, nor any evil in that which occupies them. 
They rest from all that pains and wearies in this life ; 
but in the enjoyment and prosecution of all that is 
beautiful and good, " they rest not day and night." 
Kev. 4 : 8. There is a perfection of life and strength 
that finds its element and satisfaction in ceaseless min- 
istry, and in the unravelling of those exhaustless reve- 
lations of which God and His wonderful purpose re- 
specting man are the subjects. "They serve Him day 
and night." Kev. 7: 15. 

The heavenly existence, then, is not a state of dreamy 
torpor and inaction, but one of ceaseless and delightful 
enjoyment. " The soul and its glorified aspirations will 
be like the sun, coming forth from his chamber, and 
rejoicing like a strong man to run his race ; ever climb- 
ing the firmament, yet never reaching the meridian ; 
coming nearer the excellent glory, and yet still speak- 
ing of it as light inaccessible." It must be so if we 
are to know as we are known. It is very delightful to 
contemplate heaven as the Rest of the saints; "where 
the clarion of battle is hushed, every storm-cloud past, 
every weary night-watch at an end, the spirit cradled 
in perfect peace, the Sabbath of eternity !" But the 
most thrilling and pleasing thought is that blessed 
ministry, that endless march into the infinite depths, 
that loving struggle to comprehend God and his ways ; 



78 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

and so the glorified soul will go on in a progress the 
thought of which now bewilders us. 

In that progress will be the investigation of God's 
providence, with which, not only as individuals, but 
as households, as churches and communities, we have 
been so intimately and sometimes so tenderly identi- 
fied. To our half-blind vision what a great deep is 
God's providence ! 

" God moves in a mysterious way, 
His wonders to perform." 

And sympathizing with our embarrassment, He tells 
us we shall know hereafter. We shall know as we are 
known. Not a day passes but something in the great 
sweep of God's ordering startles us, and sometimes 
seems to dash our best hopes to the dust, and we 
look about in the dark all bewildered until the voice 
of Christian faith whispers to us : " Clouds and dark- 
ness are round about Him ; righteousness and judg- 
ment are the habitation of His throne." Ps. 97 : 2. 
" We know that all things work together for good to 
them that love God." Bom. 8 : 28. And whilst this 
gives composure to the perplexed soul, it does not solve 
the mystery. That revelation belongs to the future. 
Providence makes no mistakes ; it is the issue of in- 
finite perfection, and not until we partake of that per- 
fection shall we be able fully to comprehend it. Here, 
in the sphere of providence we think and speak as 
children ; we know in part, but when that which is in 
part is taken away, and the perfect has come, we shall 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 79 

no longer have to do with the dim twilight, but with 
the now unendurable flash of celestial knowledge. 

What were mysteries here will have become the 
easy attainments of knowledge there. There we will 
find the perfection of present mysteries in a revelation, 
which will be read by our celestial capacities, in what 
we are, in our surroundings, and especially in the ra- 
diant face of Him at whose feet we cast our crowns. 
There our endless queries will all be answered; and we 
will see as never before how God was, and is, and must 
be in all the movements of the universe — all in all. 
But who supposes that such revelation will be experi- 
enced without mutual communication. The provi- 
dence that brought a flood of light to my home, or 
that swept it with a wave of black crest, and gave us a 
memory that can never be recalled without the respon- 
sive tear, we shall gather to talk about it, and to ap- 
prehend the way of God more perfectly in it. The 
mother, the husband, the wife, the child will hasten 
in mutual love and fellowship to disclose the wonders, 
the sublime issues of an afflictive dispensation, which 
they failed to comprehend here, and which in its bene- 
dictions now quite surprises them more than the mys- 
tery did on earth. Ah, yes, sorrowing one, not alone 
like some recluse, but along with those whose hearts 
were riven when your own was struck, and whose tears 
fell at the same sad shrine, you shall discover why the 
child was taken, w T hy the strong arm on which you 
leaned was broken, why the delicate and timid were 
left and the buoyant and vigorous taken, why the 



80 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

angel of the house departed one sad night, and you and 
your motherless children were left to weep over the 
ashes on your hearthstone. It will all come to light, 
and as others than yourself were identified with the 
appointment and purpose of the providence, they 
must be associated in its disclosures and final end. I 
do not think w 7 e will speak about and search into 
God's dealings with us as families, as members of the 
same household of faith, and as sinners saved by the 
same redemption, and all the while be ignorant of one 
another. 

No: in the joy of recognition, the blessedness of a 
fellowship that itself will promote the delightful reve- 
lation, w T e will not only mutually contemplate the prov- 
idences that involve our homes, but we will recount 
the way of grace in which God has led us ; we will 
trace the divine purpose and progress in all the his- 
tory of the Church, marking her conflict and trial here 
and her triumph there. Oh, what a revelation of the 
manifold wisdom of God awaits us, and how the glory 
of it will be enhanced by our mutual research and en- 
joyment! In view of these gracious anticipations, I 
w r onder not that one like Paul, whose faith grappled 
with such vigor with the unseen, must exclaim, " For I 
reckon that the sufferings of this present time are 
not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall 
be revealed in us." Horn. 8 : 18. Bereaved one, if the 
angels have dropped this beatitude on the grave that 
has inclosed your earthly hopes, " Blessed are the dead 
that die in the Lord/' then look away from the sorrow 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 81 

and mystery of the dispensation to the revelation in 
heaven ; think less of the parting and more of the 
meeting, less of the loss and more of the gain ; you are 
to meet by and by, and then, what a welcome ! and 
what promotion and glory, as with untrammelled wing 
your united souls hasten to study the ways of God, 
and you rise higher, and find love to be the con- 
tinual impulse in all the divine plan, and behold such 
results as you dreamed not of, and what sentiments of 
praise will rush to your lip I Then God will be vin- 
dicated, and with a wonder that no achievement of 
creation, no result of grace on earth ever awakened, 
you will be led to exclaim in the grateful rapture of 
your soul : " Great and marvellous are thy works, 
Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou 
King of saints." 

From these several truths, then, and others which 
might be adduced, it seems evident that we shall recog- 
nize our friends in heaven. That, which grace has 
made so blessed here, that, through which the presence 
and beauty of Jesus have been made more real and 
delightful, that, in which, both in joy and sorrow, 
heaven has so often been imaged, will not be lost or 
diminished, but perfected in glory ; and there, in a 
sense higher and more heavenly than ever experienced 
here, we shall behold how good and pleasant a thing 
it is for brethren that agree to dwell together in unity. 

Oh, it is a beam of light, a whisper from the home 
of many mansions, a hope lighted by and to be realized 
where the walls are jasper and the streets are gold, 

6 



82 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

that I would not destroy, as, like an angel from heaven, 
it brings its consolation to bereft homes and hearts. 
Only see to it that the life does not mock the hope, 
and let us not fail to exalt and honor it by heeding 
the lessons it brings. 

" Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such 
things, be diligent that ye may be found of Him in 
peace, without spot and blameless." 2 Peter 3 : 14. 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 83 



CHAPTER IV. 

" Is friendship, then, unfit for heaven ? Would love- 
That holy impulse which in Jesus dwelt, and streamed 
From Him into the souls of those who touched 
His loving heart — would it pollute the place ? 
If that which buds in grace is not to bloom 
In bliss, and thou canst prove it so, say on !" 

When the spies returned from the land of promise 
they brought with them a luscious cluster of grapes, 
taken in the Valley of Eshcol, as an evidence of the 
fruitfulness and fertility of that goodly land, concern- 
ing which they said : " Surely it floweth with milk and 
honey ; and this is the fruit of it." In this chapter I 
propose to go into the "goodly land" of this pleasing 
subject, and, in the opinions of others, bring back such 
ripe and fragrant clusters as I may find. It quite relieves 
my fear of presumption in attempting to write upon 
this theme, that so many of the wise and good have 
spoken upon it with such assurance of conviction, and 
with such inspiration of hope. Are not these views of 
the great and good rich grape-clusters burdened with 
the fragrance of the heavenly Canaan ? And if God 
will help me to entwine these living vines about any 
stricken lonely heart, or to hang these ripe clusters on 
the walls of any desolate home, so that hope will drop 
her anchor on the bright side of the portal that quivers 



84 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

between the heavenly world and ours, and thus stimu- 
late a better heart and a stronger faith, the ministry 
rendered, I am sure, will not be without a benediction. 

It is not without significance that when the specific 
aim has not been to establish the doctrine of recogni- 
tion, the wisest and best of men have often made such 
deliverances as most clearly announce the glad hope 
for the coming realization of which so many look. 
Who, I may ask, that has any right to think and talk 
of heaven, who that has any holy longing toward its 
revelation and glory, has not at some time spoken of 
that thrilling welcome and unmarred fellowship which 
await those whose names are written on high ? In the 
field we glean there is not a stray bunch here and there . 
but beautiful clusters lie everywhere, until the graves 
and memory of thousands are fragrant with their sweet- 
ness. And these utterances are the language of hope 
and love ; and how quick are these, when they are 
nourished at the fountain of the Gospel, to apprehend 
and interpret truth. The dew finds its way up to the 
sun without any knowledge of the laws of motion, or 
of the mysteries of light, and so, often, where there has 
been no learning, but little knowledge of objective 
theology, love has seen the bright edges of this truth, 
and has sometimes uttered itself as if taught of God. 

The mountains, the seas, the stars, the flowers, man- 
ifest themselves to those who love them. So does God. 
The pure in heart see Him. And the opinions of others 
on this doctrine are entitled to great weight, because 
their language is the language of love, — love that has 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 85 

been kindled at the cross of Christ, — and such love is 
one of God's elect interpreters. 

How sublime is the thought that it is not a perverse 
judgment, not a selfish controversial spirit, not an ar- 
rogant exclusiveness that clings to and contends for 
this truth, but it is the highest type of the heart's love, 
that scatters the cloud that has settled upon the life, 
and chases away the weird loneliness of the bereft 
home, and discovers to the soul the light and beauty 
of that fellowship which is never more to be inter- 
rupted. 

And this is in harmony with those beautiful thoughts 
which now endear the memory of the dead to us and 
ennoble the character of the living. 

Nor let it be supposed that the doctrine of recog- 
nition is a modern invention. It was a struggling 
hope in the heart of the heathen. Cicero said: "I 
desire not only to meet those whom I myself knew, 
but those also of whom I have read or heard, or re- 
garding whom I myself have written. O illustrious 
day, when I shall go hence to that divine council and 
assembly of souls, when I shall escape from this crowd 
and rabble; for I shall go not only to those illustrious 
men of whom I have before spoken, but also to my 
Cato, than whom one more excellent or illustrious in 
goodness was never born. He himself consoled me, 
judging that our distance and parting would not long 
continue." Socrates in addressing the tribunal be- 
fore which he stood said : " Will it not be unspeakably 
blessed when, escaped from those who call themselves 



86 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

judges, to appear before those who truly deserve the 

name, and to associate with all who have 

maintained the cause of truth and righteousness ?" 
What marvellous flashes of light from the benighted 
mind of the heathen are these ; how like the sweet 
notes of a bird in the dark wilderness ; how like the 
mellow radiance of a star that glows amid the rifts of 
the black cloud, they appear to us. 

But it remained for Christianity to give stability to 
this fond hope, and a better intelligence to the utter- 
ances of the heart concerning it. Ever since the angels 
sang in the skies of Bethlehem ; ever since the mind 
and heart of humanity has been lifted to that world 
whence Jesus ascended ; ever since the lamp of resur- 
rection and immortality has been swung by a pierced 
hand at the dying bed and over the graves of believers, 
the human heart has been fostering this hope, and 
voicing it out in words that sound like chimes from 
the towers of the celestial city. 

When a great calamity had fallen upon the com- 
munity, Cyprian said to the people to whom he min- 
istered: " We ought not to mourn for those who, by 
the summons of the Lord, are delivered from the 
world, since we know they are not lost, but sent before 
us, — that they have only taken their leave of us in 
order to precede us. We may long for them as we do 
for those who are on a distant voyage, but not lament 
them. Why do we not ourselves wish to depart out of 
this world, or why do we mourn our departed ones as 
lost ? Why do we not hasten to see our country, to 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 87 

greet our parents? There await us a vast multitude 
of dear ones — fathers, mothers, children — who are al- 
ready secure of their own salvation, and anxious only 
for ours. What a mutual joy to them and us when 
we shall come into their presence and embrace !" 

There is something in the doctrine of recognition 
to give sanctity and permanence to the home, and to 
invest its duties with the highest dignity and excel- 
lence. 

Without it the home could not be the symbol of 
heaven, and much that has been written by its ash- 
strewn hearthstone would be without meaning. For 
example, these and kindred lines : 

" Over the river they beckon to me, 

Loved ones who've crossed to the further side, 
The gleam of their snowy robes I see, 

But their voices are lost in the dashing tide. 
There's one with ringlets of sunny gold, 

And eyes the reflection of heaven's own blue, 
He crossed in the twilight gray and cold, 

And the pale mist hid him from mortal view ; 
We saw not the angels who met him there, 

The gates of the city we could not see, 
Over the river, over the river, 

My brother stands waiting to welcome me. 

" Over the river the boatman pale 

Carried another, the household pet, 
Her brown curls waved in the gentle gale, 
Darling Minnie ! I see her yet. 



88 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

She crossed on her bosom her dimpled hands, 

And fearlessly entered the phantom bark, 
We felt it glide from the silver sands, 

And all our sunshine grew strangely dark ; 
We know she is safe on the further side, 

Where all the ransomed and angels be ; 
Over the river, the mystic river, 

My childhood's idol is waiting for me." 

Certainly we can, and we do put a higher and nobler 
estimate upon our children and friends here when we 
are permitted to indulge the hope that we shall meet 
and know them in heaven. 

Said Richard Baxter : " I must confess, as the ex- 
perience of my own soul, that the expectation of 
loving my friends in heaven, principally kindles my 
love to them on earth. If I thought I should never 
know them, and consequently never love them after 
this life is ended, I should in reason number them 
with temporal things, and love them as such ; but I 
now delightfully converse with my pious friends in a 
firm persuasion that I shall converse with them for- 
ever ; and I take comfort in those of them who are 
dead or absent as believing I shall shortly meet them 
in heaven, and love them with a love which shall then 
be perfected." 

Allusion has been made to the social aspect of 
heaven and to the perpetuation of our human friend- 
ships, both of which are not only implied in but sus- 
tained by this doctrine. On this point the distin- 
guished Archbishop Whately says : " I am convinced 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 89 

that the extension and perfection of friendship will 
constitute a great part of the future happiness of the 
blessed Many a one selects when he is read- 
ing history — a truly pious Christian, most especially, in 
sacred history — some one or two favorite characters, 
with whom he feels that a personal acquaintance would 
have been peculiarly delightful to him. Why should 
not such a desire be realized in a future state ? A wish 
to see and personally know, for example, the Apostle 
Paul, or John, is the most likely to arise in the noblest 
and purest mind. I should be very sorry to think 
such a wish absurd and presumptuous, or unlikely ever 
to be gratified. The highest enjoyment, doubtless, 
to the blessed will be the personal knowledge of their 
great and beloved Master; yet I cannot but think 
that some part of their happiness will consist in an 
intimate knowledge of the greatest of his followers 
also, and of those of them in particular whose peculiar 
qualities are to each the most attractive. 

"In this world, again, our friendships are limited, 
not only to those w 7 ho live in the same age and country, 
but to a small portion even of them — to a small por- 
tion even of those who are not unknown to us, and 
whom we know to be estimable and amiable, and who, 
we feel, might have been among our dearest friends. 
Our command of time and leisure to cultivate friend- 
ships imposes a limit to their extent, — they are bounded 
rather by the occupation of our thoughts than of our 
affections, — and the removal of such impediments in a 



90 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

better world seems to me a most desirable and a most 
probable change. 

" I see no reason, again, why those who have been 
dearest friends on earth, should not, when admitted to 
that happy state, continue to be so, with full knowledge 
and recollection of their former friendship." 

In this same line of thought the eminent Dr. Dwight, 
whose whole temper of mind and habit forbid anything 
like the visionary, merely sentimental, or speculative, 
says, in speaking of the redeemed in heaven, " They 
are brethren to each other. In this character they 
will behold each other as made of one blood, and as 
sprung from the same loins ; as redeemed from sin and 
misery by the death of the Son of God ; as renewed by 
the same spirit of truth ; as fellow-members of the 
same church ; as fellow-travellers in the same journey 
towards heaven ; as ruined by the same apostasy, re- 
covered by the same mercy, and heirs of the same 
glorious inheritance. How many bonds of endearment 
and union are here presented to our view ! how inti- 
mate are these relations ! how important in their na- 
ture ! what sources of attachment, what indissoluble 
ligaments do they form for the heart ! what intense 
endearment must they awaken ! what delightful offices 
of love must they inspire ! 

"Heaven is the world of friendship, of friendship 
unmingled, ardent, and entire. The disinterested love 
of the Gospel dwells here in every bosom. Selfishness, 
since the ejection of the fallen angels from these de- 
lightful regions, has been here unknown and unheard 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 91 

of, except in the melancholy tidings, which have 
reached the happy inhabitants, of its deplorable effects 
upon our apostate world. Here every individual, in 
the strictest sense, fulfils the second great command 
of the moral law, and literally loves his neighbor as 
himself. No private, separate interest is even proposed. 

" At the same time this friendship will endure forever. 
No degeneracy will awaken alarm and distrust, no 
alienation chill the heart, no treachery pierce the soul 
with anguish ; no parent will mourn over an apostate 
child, and no child over a profligate parent. No 
brothers or sisters will be wrung with agony by the 
defection and corruption of those w r ho, inexpressibly 
endeared to them in this world by the tender ties of 
nature and the superior attachments of the Gospel, 
have here walked with them side by side in the path 
of life, and have at length become their happy com- 
panions in the world of glory. Husbands and wives, 
also here mutually and singularly beloved, will there 
be united, not indeed in their former earthly relation, 
but in a friendship far more delightful, and, w T afted 
onward by the stream of ages, without a sigh, without 
a fear, will become, in each other's eyes, more and 
more excellent, amiable, and endeared forever. That 
the redeemed w 7 ho have been known to each other in 
the present world will be mutually known in heaven 
I have shown in a former discourse. That this knowl- 
edge will prove the means of mutual happiness cannot 
be doubted." 

Nor was it mere sentiment with these men ; their 



92 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

testimony is rooted in something more reliable than 
mere feeling. It was not when they had returned from 
some new-made grave they spoke thus, as if the light 
of heaven was upon them. They looked through the 
clear glass of the Word of God, and then gave the 
world the interpretation of their vision. 

Dr. Knapp, Professor of Theology in the University 
of Halle, observes : " According to the representations 
contained in the Holy Scriptures, the saints will dwell 
together in the future world, and form, as it were, a 
kingdom or state of God. They will there partake of 
a common felicity. Their enjoyment will doubtless 
be very much heightened by friendship and by their 
confiding intercourse with each other. . . . That w T e 
shall recognize our former friends, shall be again asso- 
ciated with them, was uniformly believed by all an- 
tiquity. This idea was admitted as altogether rational, 
and as a consoling thought, by the most distinguished 
ancient philosophers. Even reason regards this as in 
a high degree probable ; but to one who believes the 
Holy Scriptures it cannot be a matter of doubt and 
conjecture." 

Says the eloquent Melville : "It is yet but a little 
while, and we shall be delivered from the burden and 
the conflict, and, with all those who have preceded us 
in the righteous struggle, enjoy the deep raptures of a 
Mediator's presence. Then, reunited to the friends 
with whom we took sweet counsel upon earth, we shall 
recount our toil only to heighten our ecstasy, and call 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 93 

to mind the tug and the din of war, only that, with a 
more bounding throb and a richer song, we may feel 
and celebrate the wonders of redemption." 

Such is the frank opinion of a few of the most emi- 
nent scholars and divines the modern Church has pro- 
duced. To them it seemed, as it has and now seems 
to not a few, that a denial of this doctrine is a viola- 
tion of the noblest elements of our nature, and that to 
disbelieve it is to deny the truth, and embarrass well- 
established views of God's purposes concerning our 
future. 

Along with many others these noble witnesses have 
long since entered upon the realization of this hope. 
Who doubts, who desires to doubt, that they now, with 
the many to whom they ministered on earth, know and 
enjoy that blissful fellowship concerning which they 
bore such beautiful testimony when upon the earth ? 
And this testimony was not a dream, not a mere senti- 
ment, not a gush of the heart when it wept over some 
withered treasure, but it was the calm judgment of 
matured minds, of men mighty in the Scriptures and 
high up in those revelations which God is pleased 
to make to those who live long in communion with 
Him ; and we accept these witnesses with confidence. 
Could they swing back the pearly gates and speak to 
us from amid the " excellent glory," I do not believe 
they would have occasion to deny a line they have 
written on recognition, but we must be gladly content 
with the earthly testimony : 



94 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

"For none return from those quiet shores, 

Who cross with the boatman cold and pale ; 
We hear the dip of the golden oars, 

And catch a gleam of the snowy sail ; 
And, lo ! they have passed from our yearning heart, 

They cross the stream and are gone for aye, 
We may not sunder the veil apart 

That hides from our vision the gates of day, 
We only know that their barks no more 

May sail with us o'er life's stormy sea ; 
Yet somewhere I know on the unseen shore, 

They watch, and beckon, and wait for me." 

And this grand truth, like a sweet symphony that 
lingers in the air, is caught up and heralded on, until 
all the years are made resonant with its music, and 
so we have the testimony of the living as well as of 
the dead. 

How fragrant with Christian grace and hope are 
these words of Eev. J. C. Kyle, a man who, in the 
Christian earnestness of his pen and the influence of 
his piety, touches two hemispheres. In a little leaflet 
redolent with the consolation of the Gospel, he says : 
" There is something to my mind unspeakably glorious 
in this prospect ; few things so strike me in looking 
forward to the good things yet to come. Heaven will 
be no strange place to us when we get there. We 
shall not be oppressed by the cold, shy, chilly feeling 
that we know nothing of our companions. We shall 
feel at home. We shall see all of whom we have read 
in Scripture, and know them all, and mark the pecu- 
liar graces of each one. ... If it is pleasant to know 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 95 

one or two saints and meet them occasionally now, 
what will it be to know them all and to dwell with 
them forever? 

" There is something unspeakably comforting, more- 
over, as well as glorious in this prospect. It lights up 
the valley of the shadow of death. It strips the sick, 
bed and the grave of half their terrors. Our beloved 
friends who have fallen asleep in Christ are not lost, 
but only gone before. The children of the same God 
and partakers of the same grace can never be sepa- 
rated very long. They are sure to come together again 
when this world has passed away. Our pleasant com- 
munion with our kind Christian friends is only broken 
off for a small moment, and is soon to be eternally 
resumed. . . . Blessed and happy indeed will that 
meeting be ! better a thousand times than the parting ! 
We parted in sorrow, we shall meet in joy ; w T e parted 
in stormy weather, and we shall meet in a calm harbor ; 
we parted amidst pains, and aches, and groans, and 
infirmities, we shall meet with glorious bodies, able to 
serve our Lord forever without distraction. And, 
best of all, we shall meet never to be parted, never to 
shed one more tear, never to put on mourning, never 
to say good by and farewell again. Oh! it is a 
blessed thought that saints will know one another in 
heaven !" 

And this, my brethren, is the joyous witness of a man 
who is distinguished for loyalty to the truth and love 
to Christ ; one who drinks often and deeply at the 
crystal fountain of the Gospel. But we are compassed 



96 KECOGNITION IN HEAVEN". 

about with a great cloud of witnesses, and we hasten 
on. In an address made by Bishop Foster, of the M. 
E. Church, at Chautauqua Lake, a few years ago, I find 
these words : " To my own faith it is unfalteringly 
certain that death will bring me to those I loved and 
bring them to me, as it is that it will bring me to im- 
mortality. If the one is true the other must be. I 
must cease to be a man and be clothed with some other 
order of life before I could even* consent to enter a 
heaven which is barren of the spirits who have been so 
dear to me on earth. Ruth's devotion, demanded a 
home and a grave with her whom she loved ; but no 
less did she demand a heaven with her. "Thy God shall 
be my God ' carries in it the avowal of a hope of eter- 
nal union. It is safe to say that no hope is so universal, 
so inextinguishable, so confident. Its disappointment 
would shroud eternity with darkness and cover its ages 
with woe. There is no fact in human experience, no 
attribute of human nature, no quality of Godhead, no 
circumstance in the divine administration, which war- 
rants doubt. Every principle must be revolutionized, 
the future must be a total contradiction of the past, old 
precedents and analogies must all fail, all things must 
radically change, death must obliterate all memories, 
and affections, and ideas, and law r s, or the awakening 
in the next world will be amid the welcomes, and 
loves, and raptures of those who left us with tearful fare- 
wells and with dying prpmises that they would wait to 
welcome us when they should arrive. And so they do. 



RECOGNITION" IN HEAVEN. 97 

Not so sorrowfully, not anxiously but lovingly, they 
wait to bid us welcome. 

" Not as strangers approaching some lonely shore 
should we depart, but as loved and longed-for pilgrims, 
w T ho return to open arms and welcoming hearts. I 
long to see Jesus, and angels who have watched over 
me and befriended me, and all of the great and good 
whose virtues have enriched the ages. I know I shall 1 
hasten rapturously to worship my Lord ; may-be He 
will take me in His arms to bear me over the river, 
and so to Him I shall pour out my great and reverent 
love ; but I am certain I shall see, crowding down 
nearest the shore, some forms that will give me their 
first caresses ; forms that will be more to me than all 
the jewelled host that circle the eternal throne. The 
etiquette of heaven will recognize their right. Nor 
will it be for a day." 

What a cluster is not this? It smells of the beau- 
tiful land that bounds the other side of our life-sea. 
There is a real vigor in it; and as I have written it for 
others it has brought me comfort, for I could not but 
see in it the picture of a loved one, dressed in the white 
robe of the saints, whom I met but a few weeks ago at 
the shrine of devotion, at the social board, with whom 
I walked to the house of God, and with whom I talked 
of the days gone by ; but we parted, little thinking 
that it was never to meet again on earth. Dear soul, 
how radiant and how beautiful in glory! And now, 
methinks, it is with an angel's grace she beckons us 
onward, and with an angel's smile, I am sure, she will 

7 



98 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

one day bid parents, husband and children, brothers 
and sisters welcome at the beautiful gate. Oh ! how 
these noble testimonies should come to every stricken 
but believing heart, as the ring of " Gospel bells," or 
as the rolling, transporting echoes of the choir that 
chants before the throne. 

A few days ago the Rev. Dr. Richard L. Storrs, of 
Brooklyn, with his thoughts on heaven and his eye 
resting on the lifeless form of his venerable friend, 
Rev. Dr. S. H. Cox, said : 

" He is with those whom he loved and honored, in 
his own communion and in others, who passed from 
earth before him, with whom he had walked here in 
intimate fellowship, with whom he walks henceforth 
in the blessed and holy companionship of the skies. 
.... He is with the many of his congregation whom 
he had instructed, quickened, and led toward heaven, 
and with whom he had gone, as they passed from 
earth, up almost to the celestial portal ! 

" How tender and joyous must be their mighty wel- 
come of him ! . . . . May we not conceive the compa- 
nies of those on high who knew him here thronging 
around him to welcome him with special fondness to 
that immense praising assembly, from which they who 
have once entered go no more out ! You, of this church, 
welcome this lifeless body as it pauses for an hour on 
its solemn way to the place of graves. But they, more 
numerous, who have gone up from hence greet with 
acclaim of gladdest triumph the living spirit, crowned 
with fresh power and ethereal beauty, as it enters the 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 99 

spheres of life eternal ! The heavens seem to open 
above us, and I can offer no other prayer, no better 
wish for you who will follow these dear remains to 
yonder resting-place than that over all noises of the 
city streets, and through all silences of the city of the 
dead, your listening souls may catch from afar the 
echoes of that celestial welcome ! " It is a beautiful 
tribute, but not more beautiful as a tribute to a de- 
parted friend than it is a noble and eloquent testi- 
mony to the truthfulness of the doctrine of heavenly 
recognition. 

Are all these voices that come up out of the deep 
of the human soul, when its love is purest and its faith 
is strongest, nothing but empty sound ? 

Have these holy longings, these reaches heaven- 
ward, no root in God, in Christ, and in the everlasting 
truth ? Doubtless much we have said and believed to 
be true will be stricken out when the day of a higher 
and better revelation shall dawn ; but we believe these 
sublime testimonies, so fully in harmony with all that 
is noblest in human nature and with everything that 
is beautiful and celestial in the divine plan, will stand, 
and one of the grandest hopes and greatest sources of 
heavenly enjoyment will continue imbedded as a 
blessed conviction in the moral constitution of man, 
and drop its fadeless light on the weary heart and 
rugged pathway of the race in all the generations to 
come. To these witnesses I might add the mighty 
names of Calvin, Bunyan, Doddridge, Chalmers, and 
a host more. As the great crowd has an impulse to 



100 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

catch up the shout and ring it on, so thousands have 
been impelled to bear testimony to this doctrine, and 
the hope of its realization nestles lovingly in the soul 
of a great throng who have graves at which the 
heart's affection has a shrine. Going into the sphere of 
poetry, not a few, now sad and now glad, have touched 
the lyre and brought forth strains that found both 
their inspiration and music in the hope of recogni- 
tion. I only stay now to repeat a few lines from Bick- 
ersteth's Yesterday, To-Day, and Forever. They are 
tender and beautiful. He is describing the experience 
of one on entering the abode of the blessed dead. 

"Andio, 
A valley opened on our sudden gaze, 
Pre-eminently beautiful and bright 
'Mid that bright world of beauty. But straightway, 
Or ever I could utter words of praise, 
Voices familiar as my mother tongue 
Fell on me ; and an infant cherub sprang, 
As springs a sunbeam to the heart of flowers, 
Into my arms, and murmured audibly, 
* Father, dear father !' and another clasped 
My knees, and faltered the same name of power. 

" The one who nestled in my breast had seen 

All of earth's year except the winter's snows ; 

Spring, summer, autumn, like sweet dreams, had smiled 

On her 

And now, where we had often pictured her, 

I saw her one of the beatified. 

****** 
" And when I saw my little lambs unchanged, 

And heard them fondly call me by my name, 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 101 

1 Then is the bond of parent and of child 
Indissoluble,' I exclaimed, and drew 
Them closer to my heart and wept for joy. 

" But other voices of familiar love, 
And other forms of light, reminded me, 
By the deep yearnings of my soul, I was 
Myself, not only a father, but a child ; 
Nor child alone, but brother, pastor, friend. 
How often had I longed in dreams o' the night, 
Or meditative solitude, to see 
The beaming sunshine of my father's smile, 
Which ever seemed to me a reflex joy 
Cast from God's smile ; or haply oftener yet 
My mother's face of fond solicitude, — 
Solicitous for all except herself. 
They were before me now. Nor they alone ; 
Betwixt them leant a slender seraph's form, 
My sister's spirit, who with frailest bark 
Year after year had stemmed the wildest sea, 
Pain, conflict, cloud, and utter weariness, 
Till the last billow, almost unawares, 
On its rough bosom bore her into rest. 
And can this be that wave-tossed voyager, 
This she ? Radiant with beauty and with bloom, 
As if the past had written on her brow 
Its transcript in those shades of pensive grace 
And breathing sympathy, wherein remained 
Nothing of sadness, all of saintliness, 
She stood and looked on me a moment, saying, 
1 My brother, it is he !' and on my neck 
She fell ; nor arms alone were interlocked 
In that embrace. And then the pent-up thoughts 
Of many years flowed from our eager lips, 
As waters from a secret spring unsealed." 



102 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

It may be observed that this is poetry, and that 
some license has been indulged. True; but who will 
find aught in these lines to conflict with the beautiful, 
and pure, and truthful ? The picture may seem highly 
colored to some, but to my mind the whole face and 
spirit of it are heavenly, and it brings a tribute not 
only to the mind that could produce such a vision, but 
most of all to the glorious Gospel of the blessed God, 
in whose truth the whole sublime scene is rooted. 

But I hasten yet to produce some testimony from 
the lips of the dying. When the martyr Stephen was 
dying, he " looked steadfastly into heaven, and saw 
the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand 
of God.'' And so it has more than once been given to 
the dying Christian to see the invisible, and to declare 
those heavenly hopes embosomed in the better life, the 
bright beams of which have already fallen upon the soul. 

How fondly the heart has laid hold, and how sweetly 
the lips have spoken of the glad meeting on the other 
side. The evening before Luther's death he spoke 
frequently of death and the eternal world. He was 
interrogated by some friends who were present on the 
subject of our present meditations. He answered : 
" How did Adam do ? He had never in his life seen 
Eve — he lay and slept ; yet, when he awoke he did 
not say, Whence did you come? Who are you? but 
he said : ' This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of 
my flesh/ How did he know that this woman did 
not spring forth from a stone ? He knew it because 
he was full of the Holy Spirit, and in possession of the 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 103 

true knowledge of God. Into this knowledge and image 
we will, in the future life, again be renewed in Christ ; 
so that we will know father, mother, and one another, 
on sight, better than did Adam and Eve." Bishop 
Burgess says : " Melancthon, a few days before his 
death, told Camerarius that he trusted their friend- 
ship should be cultivated and perpetuated in another 
world." How sweet and comforting and helpful must 
have been the fellowship of these great souls on earth, 
amid the commotion and trial of the Church ; and as 
they battled for the truth, how the hope of rest 
and reunion with those who were co-laborers with 
them in the conflict, must have been to their weary 
spirits as the sunlight breaking through the rift of the 
cloud to the mariner when the storm is battling with 
the sea ; yes, as the first burst of glory to the soul when, 
free and pure, it goes "sweeping through the gates." 

The late Bishop Haven on the last night of his life, 
and when all visitors had gone out of the room, said : 
" Now we are alone, and must have a little time with 
our own family. Here are my two sisters, my two 
children. Where is my mother?" And when she was 
brought in they stood in a circle round his bed in 
order that he might see them all. But his sight was 
failing, and, looking around the circle, he said : " Are 
we all alone?" And, on being satisfied on this point, 
he gave the last of himself to God and to those on 
earth whom he loved best ; taking their hands one by 
one and saying : " This is my dear, dearest mother ; 
Mamie, my little sunbeam — dear pretty one ; Willie, 
my noble son ;" and then recurred the name which he 



104 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

was ever whispering in the intervals of conversation : 
" Precious Jesus, blessed Jesus." There was another 
name also, — the name of her who had been a constant 
presence in his soul,- though for fourteen years she had 
also been a presence among the angels of God. And 
when he knew he was about to die, he said, as if over- 
whelmed by the labors and journeyings through which 
and over which he had dragged himself, in spite of 
sickness, sorrow, and pain, for all these long lonesome 
years : " After I have seen the Lord I shall want to 
rest for the first thousand years with my head in the 
lap of my Mary." 

Take away the hope of recognition, and the light 
and beauty and immortal love fades out of this beau- 
tiful scene. 

Of Dr. Guthrie, it is said that in his last illness, " He 
delighted to talk of heaven, and of the many friends 
gone before who would welcome him there. 

" In particular he pictured to himself his son John, 
who died in infancy and whose memory he always 
fondly cherished, running to the golden gate to meet 
him. He had no doubt of the recognition of friends 
in heaven, and in reference to this quoted the saying 
of an old woman : ' So you think we shall be more 
foolish in heaven than we are here?' " 

After a minister had prayed with him he was too 
weak to address him directly, but whispered to one of 
his sons standing by : "Tell him my journey is nearly 
ended. Ask him to pray that I may have a speedy 
entrance into heaven, and that we may have a happy 
meeting there, where we shall no longer have to pro- 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 105 

claim Christ, but where we shall enjoy Him forever 
and ever." 

Oh ! it is delightful to hear these words from the 
dying, and they ought to be to the weary and sad as 
flashes of light that burst from the open gate as the 
departing enter ; they should ring the sweetest melody 
into the " songs of the night," and give to every mur- 
mur the buffet. 

And is there no appropriate significance in scenes 
like these? no strong intimation that the bond of a 
sanctified love shall never be broken, and that we shall 
know and gladly greet our loved ones in heaven ? Is 
it not the testimony of our consciousness, the voice of 
our souls, the yearning of our hearts, as faith with a 
stronger wing soars toward the unseen and eternal ? 
Blessed be God for a witness so noble in its source, so 
widespread in its heralds, so delightful and comforting 
in its purpose, and so beautifully harmonious with the 
unsullied immortality of the Gospel. From the Canaan 
of the best life and faith we bring to weary hearts, to 
all whose hope glimmers in the light that knows no 
shade, these ripe luscious clusters, and we feel sure 
that if read and accepted in the spirit of Christian 
hope and faith they will open the gates of the heavenly 
Canaan to the advancing step, and give a sublime real- 
ity to the hopes that beckon us on. " Thus take thy 
heart into the Land of Promise, show it the pleasant 
hills and fruitful valleys, show it the clusters of grapes, 
which thou hast gathered, to convince it that it is 
a blessed land, flowing with better than milk and 
honey." 



106 KECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 



CHAPTEE V. 

" Smitten friends 
Are angels sent on errands full of love ; 
For us they languish, and for us they die. 
And shall they languish, shall they die in vain ? 
Ungrateful, shall we grieve their hovering shades, 
Which wait the revolution in our hearts ? 
Shall we disdain their silent, soft address ; 
Their posthumous advice and pious prayer ; 
Senseless as herds which graze their hallowed graves, 
Frustrate their anguish, and destroy their deaths ?" 

" No man dieth to hiraself." The dead and dying 
are not without a ministry to the living, and we shall 
fail of securing the best and most permanent results in 
the contemplation of this subject if we pass by un- 
heeded the practical lessous and solemn counsels it fur- 
nishes. Who that has stood beside the pale form that 
was once instinct with life, but is now silent and await- 
ing that last service in which it can have no part, — 
concealment in the grave, — has not felt the solemn 
admonition, as if the mute lips were speaking, and 
turned away with reflections, that put a deep shadow on 
the pomp and vanity of a passing world, and gave promi- 
nence to those obligations and duties of life which cul- 
minate in the unseen and eternal. And so, as we 
speak of those to whom we are allied by the tenderest 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 107 

ties and noblest affections, but who have gone from our 
homes and from our spheres of delightful communion, not 
to return any more, the very blessedness of the theme 
and of the prospect which it puts before us, beautiful 
as the star that illumined the faces of the wise men, 
should inspire us with holy caution to observe care- 
fully the lessons taught, nor let them slip, until we have 
felt a strong impulse to greater fidelity and higher at- 
tainments "in all holy conversation and godliness." 
And yet as the eager traveller is deceived by the mi- 
rage so bright and promising, our danger may lie in the 
tender beauty and winning charm of the subject. I 
should rather not have lifted my pen than that one 
soul should be rocked into false repose, or be led to in- 
dulge a vain hope, by any utterance on these pages. 

When the favored disciples beheld the " excellent 
glory " of the Transfiguration, enrapt with the heav- 
enly splendor, the impetuous Peter would remain. But, 
then, what would have become of the world lying in 
wickedness, tortured with misery, and longing for de- 
liverance ? Times of rapture should fit us for seasons 
of service. When we have seen the glory on the 
mount, resplendent with its light, we should descend 
to the valley where sin struggles for supremacy, where 
pain and sorrow and death outvie each other in their 
gloomy conquest, and there, the stronger and better 
for what we have seen and hope for, scatter the dark- 
ness, destroy the evil, and lift other souls up to the 
same heavenly vision. It is a high function to enjoy," 
to have the spiritual endowment which reveals God 



108 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

and opens heaven to the soul, but it is still a higher 
function to save. I should rather be instrumental in 
healing a soul, in striking from a human heart the 
debilitating pang of a withering sorrow, and in putting 
the glad inspiration of a Christly hope into a human 
life, than to dwell in a tabernacle whose sides threw off 
the brilliant sheen of heaven's jasper and amethyst. 
But we need not give up the vision and blessing the 
subject of these pages has brought us, and which, not 
so much because it is true, as because we have hope in 
Christ, delights us; only see to it that we employ the 
benediction for the improvement of ourselves and the 
help of others. 

And after all there is no better test of any doctrine 
or truth of religion than the practical influence it has 
upon the lives of men. It is true of the subject of 
recognition. If it could be shown that in any legit- 
imate way it does militate against the well-being of 
men, then it is no subject for beings environed as we are, 
and must be abandoned. If it only please a fancy, or 
answer a query, it is not worth the time, still less the 
labor, we have spent upon it. But we are glad to be- 
lieve otherwise. It is a subject that sustains tender 
and solemn relations to the dearest and most sacred 
interests of our lives, and no man of any faith, or of 
any regard for those about him, can dwell upon it with 
anything like thoroughness, and not be compelled to 
say, — "If this doctrine , be true my earthly relations 
must be corrected and elevated, all the forces of my 
being must be given a holy aim, and my whole self 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 109 

and life must receive the baptism of a new consecra- 
tion, else the future must bring to me a revolution in 
which I see nothing now but disaster." We believe 
we have in this subject one that is suggestive of many 
and wholesome lessons, one that appeals with great 
power to the heart, and effectually guards and enforces 
the positive conditions of the Gospel. It encourages no 
hope save through Him who is the sinner's Saviour ; 
it justifies no murmuring under God's afflictive dispen- 
sations, nor does it allow excessive and idle longing for 
those who have been taken in advance of us. 

" It bids us do the work that they laid down — 

Take up the song where they broke off the strain ; 
Sojourning till we reach the heavenly town 
Where are laid up our treasures and our crown, 
And our lost loved ones will be found again." 

1st. The doctrine of heavenly recognition should exalt 
the Gospel in our esteem. It is true it is not a positive 
dogma of the Christian religion, and we do not advance 
it as such ; and yet it is only through the Christian 
faith that it becomes more than a conjecture or a thing 
of speculation, and it is only to the Christian's faith it 
makes consistent appeal and assumes the permanence 
of a blessed reality. Nothing will start the scoff of 
an infidel quicker than the hope we have ventured to 
indulge and to commend to others 'in these pages, for 
he knows whence it comes, and how very much stronger 
is its claim upon human credulity, and how very much 
nobler is the aspiration it furnishes than his own cold 



110 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

and hopeless theory. It only seems fitting that such a 
hope should spring from the Gospel, or at least chime 
with its truth and spirit. 

However limited the revelation of the Bible on 
heaven and kindred themes, it is there, and only there, 
we discover the unfolding of explicit truth, and the 
point from which is projected that which seems dim 
but beautiful in the distance. The whole Gospel is 
itself so much of heaven that it becomes the one beau- 
tiful garden from which we pluck these fragrant flow- 
ers of an unblighted paradise. Some of them are 
quite hidden away beneath the heavier foliage of larger 
bloom, like the little daisy or buttercup in an ample 
garden ; but still that is the soil in which they are 
rooted, and from what we see, and from what we find, 
we anticipate more beyond. Granting that the subject 
of our meditations is one of the smaller flowers, only 
a daisy among the great trees and majestic lilies of 
the Bible, still its roots are there, and we owe the hope 
directly or indirectly to the Gospel. As the great re- 
demption, in the unfolding of the truth, in the living 
illustration of its power and spirit, and in the wider 
achievement of the divine plan, moves onward, we 
cannot but see in its bright train the assurance of that 
of which we have spoken. 

To the Gospel we are indebted for that view of our- 
selves, both as to our origin and destiny, and for that 
exhibit of doctrines and truths which relate to our 
moral and spiritual nature, and for that experience 
which is characteristic of the new life, all of which 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. Ill 

furnish us with a basis of argument and testimony that 
leads the spiritual mind conclusively to see the bright 
light of this hope, not only in the shadows of our pres- 
ent troubled way, but mingling with the glory that 
gilds the horizon beyond. I am sure I may appeal to 
the experience of any Christian, and say that the hope 
of recognition which makes him a daily companion of 
the dear departed would never have been what it is 
without the Gospel. Here, at this crystal fountain, it 
gets its sweetness, and beauty, and holy inspiration. 
And I think it quite common among the children of 
God that as they develop in grace and ripen for celes- 
tial service, that is, as they become themselves more 
perfect illustrations of the Gospel, this delightful hope 
becomes more and more a wholesome impulse, and a 
reality that does not diminish but magnifies their love 
for Christ. How much do we owe the Gospel that we 
may entertain and speak of this comforting prospect ! 
It has sometimes been objected to the doctrine of rec- 
ognition that it is inconsistent with supreme love to 
Christ, who is the centre of glory and joy in heaven, 
and that hence the Gospel can have nothing to do with 
it. I must confess I do not admire this objection, and 
would not notice it but for its relation to this part of 
the subject. The Gospel makes so much out of love, 
I mean love of the brethren, and so plainly teaches 
that it is and is to be the constant impulse of love to 
Christ, and to our own experience it is so apparent 
that the greater our love for the saints the greater our 



112 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

love for their Master, that we must wonder that any 
one should press this objection with vehemence. 

In heaven we shall know and love as saints of God 
redeemed by the blood of His Son, and that our love 
shall tower over all for Jesus, why shall it not be great 
for one whom He has loved with an everlasting love, 
and that it shall be great for such, why shall it not be 
greater for that glorious Saviour through whose grace 
alone the sublime faculty has come to possess us? In 
the happy home all the children love one another, but 
the stronger love, and the love of all, is centred on the 
father and mother ; and so in the happier home above 
all the children know and love one another, but the 
supreme love, the love that is magnified by their un- 
sullied fellowship, is centred upon God and the Lamb. 

Nor does the Gospel teach anything else. Jesus 
bade his disciples, "Continue in his love." But that 
was by no means to lessen their love for one another ; 
on the contrary he says : " A new commandment give 
I unto you, that ye love one another ; as I have loved 
you, that ye also love one another." 

" If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and 
His love is perfected in us." 

These words touch the climax of Christian character 
and attainment here. Will there be reversion in 
heaven? Manifestly, we are indebted to the Gospel 
for the assurance that it will not be in conflict with 
supreme love to Christ that we shall love one another 
so as to make fellowship a pleasing prospect, and be- 
cause we shall love and fellowship with one another, 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 113 

we shall not love Christ less, but more. Now, all this, 
entwined about our subject as ivy is entwined about a 
trellis, should lead us to put the Gospel in high esteem. 
What is this hope worth without the Gospel ? With- 
out the Gospel it were better blotted from vision, for 
its realization must be a gnawing worm, an angry 
flash on the cloud that envelops eternity. 

You who have a right to the blessed prospect exalt 
the Gospel in your faith, your love and life, and the hope 
will become brighter and sweeter, and as you hasten 
toward its realization it will not be to diminish the 
tribute due to Jesus, but to say with glad and endless 
delight: 

" Whom have I in heaven but thee ?" 

2d. A second practical benefit resulting from a judi- 
cious consideration of this subject is the substantial com- 
fort it furnishes. 

That is a beautiful utterance of the Apostle in his 
second letter to the Corinthians. 

After the usual benediction, as if cherishing the dis- 
cipline of trial, he breaks out in these rapt words: 
" Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all 
comfort ; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, 
that we may be able to comfort them which are in any 
trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are 
comforted of God." 2 Cor. 1 : 3, 4. 

A great shout starts from almost every page of the 
Bible, saying : " Comfort ye, comfort ye my people." 

8 



114 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

It is a holy office with which God would endow us. 
Who in the fret and worry and pangs of human life 
does not need comfort ? No matter what our spiritual 
attainment, be it indifferent or vigorous, we need con- 
solation betimes. There comes to be heavenly music 
in the voice that whispers in our ear the " exceeding 
great and precious promises," or breathes upon the 
weary or smarting soul such a blissful hope as that 
which our struggling faith and love have plucked 
from the ashes of the hearthstone, and the dust of 
the grave, and put upon these pages. And if there is 
one thing in which the foul taint of selfishness is not 
to be found, it is in that comfort which has come to 
refresh our souls in sorrow and inspire them in care. It 
is something that remains and becomes more blessedly 
helpful by giving it away. God comforts us in our 
tribulation that we may be able to comfort them which 
are in any trouble. 

But with respect to the theme of our thought and 
all the sweet promises of the Gospel, a distinction is 
made which we do well to keep in mind. We cannot 
help it if the doctrine of recognition only brings con- 
solation to those who sustain friendly relations to the 
" God of all comfort." If this comfort must select its 
subjects, it is only because those whom God comforts 
have any faculty to appreciate and appropriate the 
benediction. If men will not put themselves in the 
way of that which is good and beautiful, they must not 
wonder nor chide any but themselves, if, when in the 
sorrows of life, comfort comes as an angel of consolation 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 115 

but passes them by. I would that every heart in which 
these pages touch a sympathetic chord might find the 
comfort the subject is so well adapted to impart, but 
the condition of such comfort is not more in the sub- 
ject than in the individual. 

The great sorrow that so often blights the joy and 
blasts the hope of our mortal life, is not the pain or 
the calamity attending our departing friends, but it is 
their going from us. Oh, these painful and long sepa- 
rations, how they do lacerate the heart and fill our 
days with weary loneliness. What loving and genial 
spirits are every day torn from each other's embrace 
and mutual toil and enjoyment. But what if it werQ 
to be forever ! How the hope of recognition, and a 
meeting as endless as it will be delightful, bridges over 
the wide gloomy gulf that lies between us and them. 

Is it vain that we tell the bereaved that the separa- 
tion which has caused such a sad blank in the life is 
only temporary, and that its final issue is a meeting in 
which all that made the fellowship here blessed will 
be magnified, and that no condition or evil shall ever 
undo it? Is it vain that those who count their own 
in the world beyond, and in this, call to mind the 
faces that grew pale, and the forms that would vanish 
despite their attentions, and then, over all the black 
cloud, behold, bright in the splendor of the Gospel, a 
bow of promise, which assures of a greeting, the joy of 
which shall be intensified in the fact that these are the 
same congenial spirits which long ago wrought and 
prayed and sang and wept together on earth ? What 



116 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

a mitigation of life's trials is not such a hope ! What 
a help there is in it to that resignation which becomes 
us, and to the performance of those high duties which 
seem to have an increased value and sacredness in 
times of affliction ! And can we think with any de- 
voutness on this subject and not find comfort in the 
fact which it must suggest, that, though parted from 
some who were especially dear to us, it is only for a 
little time ? Really what a short day stretches between 
•us and ours in glory. The sun is descending, and for 
some the twilight is here, and they may look across the 
narrow sea and sing : 

" Beyond the parting and the meeting 

I shall be soon ; 
Beyond the farewell and the greeting, 
Beyond the pulse's fever beating, 

I shall be soon." 

How your poor lonely heart has brightened, and voiced 
itself out in song or thanks to God, when, after a long 
and possibly toilsome absence from the loved ones, 
you could at last feel that but one day lay between 
you and the sw r eetest spot on earth, — your own home ! 
And so it is consolation that the journey is not long 
between yourself and that greeting which makes heaven 
an everlasting and unclouded home. And what 
peace comes to the spiritually-minded soul when, in 
meditation upon the departed, the thought comes as 
though an angel had descended to bear the tidings, 
that they are in heaven ! What compensation is there 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 117 

for such an assurance as that! Are those to be 
commiserated whose fond, sure hope that revelation 
utters? No ; the poet is not rash and unfeeling when 
he says : 

"'Tis sweet, as year by year we lose 
Friends out of sight, in faith to muse 
How grows in Paradise our store." 

You might envy them their fellowship with their 
Lord, but I am sure you would not bid them back to the 
conflict and woes of this life, not even to engage again 
at the expense of their palms of victory in the good 
fight of faith. Is it your wife, your blessed mother? 
Oh, the Mount Zion to which they have come! Oh, 
what bliss and beauty as their glorified forms flash up 
from the glassy sea ! 

" Who would recall her to tread o'er again 
The mortal path — from heaven's pure bliss recall ? . 
The wish were weakness — though full oft must fall 
Thick blinding tears from eyes that once were fain 
To catch her genial smile, ne'er sought in vain. 

No, ye that loved her, now to heaven resign, 
Nor wish her from that nobler life withdrawn ; 
The night of grief shall pass, and with the morn 
Shall come sweet memories ; and a face divine 
With all your worthiest thoughts shall blend, 
And a fair form your wandering step attend." 

It is comfort enough to inspire a shout, to put light 
on every cloud, to know that our loved ones are in 
heaven, and that, "stepping heavenward" ourselves, 



118 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

we shall so soon be with them, and that then that 
pure un marred joy, of which we know so little here, 
shall there be our mutual experience throughout eter- 
nity. As I write these lines, the world about me, the 
children in my home, the people to whom I minister, 
look more beautiful and become more sacred, and 
spontaneously my heart pours its grateful tribute of 
love and gratitude at the feet of Jesus, who, in the 
Gospel, comes so to comfort sorrowing humanity. 
Weep not, my friends, for your dead in Christ. Rather 
say, all hail ! ye bright spirits on the brighter shores of 
a better world. We greet you from this side where 
death still reigns, and you greet us from that where 
the tramp of the conqueror is never heard, and where 
the bright hope of the Christian, in the sublime words 
of the Apostle, is the shout of the saints: "Death is 
swallowed up in victory." 

"Ah ! the way is shining clearer, 
As we journey, ever nearer, 

To our everlasting home ; 
Friends who there await our landing, 
Comrades, round. the throne now standing, 

We salute you and we come !" 

3d. This hope of recognition should prove a constant 
impulse to holy living. 

Have we friends in heaven ? Is the memory of 
them sunny, a very Gospel to us in the noble Chris- 
tian ministries which it records? When we think of 
them, is the thought associated with hymns of praise, 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 119 

with accents of prayer, with some old well-worn Bible, 
with a pew in the house of God, and with this and 
that service in the cause of Jesus Christ? 

TheD, how can we give ourselves up to the gaudy 
tinsel and the trifling frivolities of a vain world ? how 
be content to love God a little and mammon much ? 
Does it become those who have on them the benedic- 
tion of such a hope to be sluggish in their spiritual 
life and indifferent to the glory God would reveal in 
them ? 

The graves of God's saints anywhere rebuke such a 
life, much more when the dust of those we knew sleep 
beneath. Greed for mammon, I had almost said, is 
the curse of Christendom. Let no man take pleasure 
in this subject who does not feel a recoil in his heart 
at the vain and transitory character of the world about 
him, and who does not hear a voice, with a seeming 
familiar sound, urging him toward spiritual realities 
in all he is and does. What mockery that we sit and 
think over, or speak upon, and listen to a subject like 
this, if we feel no urging toward that holy image which 
our loved departed have already taken on. As we 
think of those who have passed into the transfiguration 
of the saintly life, how everything that mars communion 
with Christ, and limits or destroys our spiritual appre- 
hension and enjoyment, should be revolting to us. 

But is it so, dear reader? And is it any tribute to 
the memory of those who have entered the " everlast- 
ing habitations'' if, as we speak of them, w T e refuse to 
lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily 



120 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

beset us, that with a better consistency we may indulge 
the hopes they now realize ? Never do we esteem the 
dead in Christ as we ought, nor have we any right, in 
quiet thoughtfulness or otherwise, to think ourselves 
in their embrace, or even in progress toward their des- 
tiny, unless by our own fidelity we feel justified in 
hoping that grace is fashioning us for that holy destiny 
which now is theirs. But surely the natural tendency 
of such a meditation is to lessen our love for this and 
increase it for a better world ; to magnify our sense of 
obligation to Him who has bought us with His blood, 
and by all the ministries of His grace still seeks to 
make us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. 
Oh, it is well if, as Young sings : 

" Oar dying friends come o'er us like a cloud 
To damp our brainless ardors, and abate 
That glare of life which often blinds the wise." 

The disposition that yearns for Christ's image, and 
which has come to be gladly familiar with the condi- 
tions of holiness, this is the disposition that will derive 
greatest profit from this theme. I can scarce con- 
ceive how we can take it into the sanctuary of our 
thought without an impulse at once to spiritual reflec- 
tion. Think of that bright hope, all luminous with 
the light of which the Lamb is the centre ! Think 
how great is the company the ages have gathered there 
from every clime ! Think that among them are those 
we once knew, now pure as the spotless robes they 
wear, and beholding God's face, and then can we help 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 121 

but respond to the words of the Apostle : " Without 
holiness no man shall see the Lord." "I beseech you 
as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, 
which war against the soul." 

It is only what our beautiful theme warrants if in 
these words of another our own experience is told : 
" How like devotion does the place become to us when 
we sit alone and summon around us their familiar 
faces ; or when we think of them in their white robes, 
with harps and palms, bending before the throne or 
walking in heavenly pastime ! It makes us feel al- 
most like the publican, who stood afar off, casting a 
wishful and reverent look toward the holiest place, 
but conscious of his unworthiness to enter it. A sweet 
penitence comes over our hearts, and we look immedi- 
ately to Jesus for a fresh application of His cleansing 
blood, that we may be made more like those into 
whose holy society we expect soon to be introduced." 
By the memory of those whose last utterance on earth 
was a greeting of love or a shout of victory,, and by 
the fond hope that we shall one day join them, and be 
one with them as they are now one with their Lord, 
let us see how holiness must be the crown and radiance 
of such an experience, and that our hope is only vain 
until our souls here and now, to be true to themselves, 
must heartily respond to this grandest description of 
the New Jerusalem : " And I saw no temple therein ; for 
the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple 
of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of 
the moon to shine in it; for the glory of God did 



122 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And 
the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the 
light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their 
glory and honor into it. And the gates of it shall 
not be shut at all by day : for there shall be no night 
there. And they shall bring the glory and honor of 
the nations into it. And there shall in no wise enter 
into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever 
worketh abomination, or maketh a lie : but they which 
are written in the Lamb's book of life." Rev. 21 : 22-27 # 

4th. The doctrine of recognition should make us so- 
licitous for the spiritual well-being of our children and 
friends. 

We have little to do with the objection sometimes 
urged against this hope, and explained elsewhere, that 
the possibility that we may not meet some of our 
friends in heaven makes the thought of recognition 
painful, and thus it is made to violate the perfect bliss 
of the better world, and so disproves itself. The ob- 
jection assumes that preseut relationship carries over, 
and forgets that perfection which only can approve of 
and fellowship with that which conforms to Christ, and 
the holy ministries of the place. There is no reason for 
that confusion in heaven, so clearly implied in not 
knowing one another there, in the painful thought 
(painful here) referred to, but very much to urge us 
to labor for the present salvation of all these. In 
any event human ruin is such, and salvation is such, 
that we should neglect no opportunity to press the 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 123 

claims of Christ upon the unsaved, but there is surely 
additional force given to the impulse, and a mighty- 
solemnity put into the obligation, when we think of 
those who stand by us, and are of us, in the domestic 
and social circle, and still more, when we think of 
that conscious meeting at last so blessed, and yet so 
fixed in its conditions. Whatever be the distance 
between us morally and spiritually, there are those 
from whom we cannot get away in this world. They 
are tied to us by bonds that death only can sever. 
There are relations in this world that sometimes un- 
avoidably bring the saint and profligate together, and 
the Christian heart clings to the wreck that bears his 
own name, and that heart bleeds most while the vic- 
tim crashes on the rocks of ruin. Children born of 
the same parents ; brothers and sisters who were cra- 
dled beneath the same roof; husbands and waives one 
in a devotion that keeps the home sunny, but remote 
as the poles in their religious lives; friends whom the 
associations of childhood or a beautiful congeniality 
of soul have blended in cheerful friendship, but who 
separate at the cross. These are some of the strange 
and often painful conditions of our human life with 
which we constantly meet. 

Looking away from this world to the world above, 
and it is from this world we are to look now, for these 
relations all go down into the grave, what an appeal 
there is to us, who have come into the higher love 
and better hope, to labor for the salvation of these so 
near to us, that we may meet them beyond, not as pa- 



124 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

rents and children, brothers and sisters, husbands and 
wives, but as saints of God, redeemed by the blood of 
Christ, and who to our memory and hearts were here 
below the subject of these blessed relations. The 
question of the recognition of our children and kin 
in heaven must be a secondary one with us, while 
these are strangers to Jesus Christ, are not cultivating 
one of the graces that constitute the heavenly char- 
acter, and while we are allowing all opportunity to 
bring them into the conditions of the Gospel, to pass 
by unimproved. 

The heart that can appreciate a subject like this is 
the heart that anticipates and desires the greatest num- 
ber in that heavenly communion, and especially spares 
no occasion to bring those nearest by ties loving and 
sacred, under the radiance of the promised hope. Par- 
ents and children, husbands and wives, friends of the 
long bygone time, it is here you must think about 
whom you shall meet in heaven, if for any profit, and 
here you well may think seriously of the possibilities 
of that final meeting, for whatever is done to enlarge 
that fellowship must be done here. And as we think 
of that coming together of the long-parted, and of 
their glorious greeting, how can we resist the admoni- 
tion of the solemn thought : " Shall I be there and 
those whom God in this lower sphere gave to me, — 
the children whose childhood was a picture in my 
home, that death sometimes shaded but never effaced 
from its sanctuary, or whom I saw grow up into the 
vigor and comeliness of man or womanhood, — shall 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 125 

we all be there? The husband in whose embrace I 
found a pure affection, and in whose arm a fidelity of 
protection and help that put a coronal of reverence 
about his name ; the wife who was a true helpmeet, 
an angel in the house; shall we all be there?" The 
fact of recognition and fellowship we may easily ven- 
ture and wait for, but shall we all be there? This is the 
vital question that concerns us here and now, and may 
heaven forbid that, with the light of such a hope as 
our subject furnishes falling on our path, w r e should 
fail to do what we may to make the picture a reality. 
The Saviour that saved you, dear reader, waits to save 
your child, your husband, your wife, your friend, so 
that, loving in life, in death you need not be divided, 
and may stand at last in an everlasting fellowship, and 
chime your voices in redemption's song : 

" I would that my dear ones might all be brought 
To the feet of the Crucified; 
Might be carried to Him when borne away 
By the coldly rolling tide. 

"But man is weak, although love be strong, 
And I cannot but look to Thee, 
And pray as thou prayedst in thine agony, 
Oh, give them again to me ! " 

5th. There is something in the thought of recognition 
that rebukes and forbids all un charitableness and unkind- 
ness in our personal relations with each other as Christians. 
Our present relations with each other as brethren in 
Christ, and the character we claim to be growing into, 



126 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

are quite enough to restrain from all those utterances 
and feelings which so often mar the peace of human 
life, cause heartburnings, and put unhappy breaches 
between those whom God in the relationship of grace 
has joined together. But the very thought of such 
unsightly difference becomes doubly painful as we are 
reminded of the graves and the final meeting of those 
toward whom our love once chilled, or against whom 
our lips may have spoken rashly or unkindly. Among 
the bitter regrets of life, lam sure, are those that rush 
upon the memory in the presence of death, and mingle, 
do w r hat we will, with the thoughts that cluster about 
those whom we expect to meet in heaven. At the time 
we thought we were justified in what we were so quick 
to feel, and say, and do, and that fell like the crash 
of a thunderclap on the divinest of human relations, 
until perhaps the poor heart that was struck never re- 
covered from the shock; but now that the victim is 
gone we see how the cruel reflection had no root in our 
consistency or piety, but started up like an evil spirit 
from the muddy deep of our pride and selfishness. 
And now the misunderstood one, the misrepresented 
one, is not here any more, and reparation cannot be 
made. And is this not the secret bitterness which 
some hearts know, the grief which the grave only 
cures? Alas! that such a sullied blight should ever 
fall upon the Christian name. Alas ! that such thought, 
or word, or feeling should ever mingle with the memo- 
ries which we must recall with pain. 

Be careful how you speak to and of those about you. 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 127 

Be careful how you rush upon the spirit of a human 
being, lest you leave the mark of your violence there, 
and start a sob that will never be hushed until death 
hush it. Be careful how you treat any one whom God 
has made and loves ; by to-morrow the golden bowl 
may crash at the fountain, and the silver cord be 
loosed, and you be left with a memory that w 7 ill put a 
vein of melancholy in all your remaining days. Ah, 
yes ! how the pale sweet faces of our dead, their dear 
names as mentioned with bated breath at the hearth- 
stone in quiet evening, the graves on which we have 
planted flowers — how these do remind us, 

" Not to scatter thorns, but roses, 
For our reaping by and by." 

We have regrets enough ; let us so fulfil the law of 
love, so bear one another's burdens, so compassionate 
those who are out of the way, so esteem those who are 
of us, inmates of the same home, members of the same 
church, associates in the same community, as that their 
death and graves, and our thoughts of union with them 
in heaven, will not throw back upon us a reflection that 
will cost us bitter tears and demand sad penitence at the 
throne of grace. There is truth in this couplet of the poet : 

" Be kind to each other through weal and tli rough woe, 
For there's many a sorrow for hearts here below." 

But there, is a higher reason for tenderness and 
charity in our relations with one another as Christians. 
We belong to Christ, and to one another in Him. We 



128 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

are supposed to love and represent Him at all times, 
and we boast a hope of great perfection and glory in 
the peaceful heavens above. And shall we allow any 
unkindness in our fellowship here to belie or blast the 
blessed hope above? With what beauty and tender- 
ness the Holy Ghost puts us on our guard, and aims to 
develop in us that kindliness and gentleness which were 
so great in our Lord, and because of which He was so 
great among men, and which are so much in conso- 
nance with the spirit and joy of the hope of which we 
have spoken. 

" Be kindly affectioned one to another, with broth- 
erly love, in honor preferring one another." Rom. 12 : 
10. " With all lowliness and meekness, with long suffer- 
ing, forbearing one another in love. Let all bitterness, 
and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be 
put away from you, with all malice. And be ye kind one 
to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even 
as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Eph. 4 : 2, 
31, 32. 

" In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better 
than themselves. Let this mind be in you, which was 
also in Christ Jesus." Phil. 2 : 3, 5. With such a 
spirit what sweetness and beauty in the hope of a 
happy meeting and eternal fellowship with Christ and 
the saints in glory. 

" Be kind to each other through life to its close, 
And when thou art free from its wishes and woes, 
When freed from life's tears, from its sorrows and sighs, 
Be kind to each other and meet in the skies. " 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 129 

6th. This fact of recognition appeals strongly to the 
unsaved to make their peace with God. Our life is full 
of strange contradictions, and one of them is the fact 
that the unsaved sometimes think about and even 
venture to entertain a hope of heaven. Very strangely 
does the Infinite Love sometimes apply itself in order 
to win men away from this world, so unworthy of their 
affection and devotion, and fix their thought upon 
that which is holy and permanent. 

As with the words home and mother, so there is a 
charm in this word heaven, which sometimes even 
the sinful heart finds difficult to resist. It is quite 
possible that some tender memory may cause the title 
of this humble volume to take on an attractive beauty, 
and lead some unsaved one to the reading of these 
pages, and, who knows, they may become a Gospel to 
him, revealing the blessed Saviour to his needy soul, 
and then throw open to his advancing step the gates 

that 

%t Forever bar 
Pollution, sin and shame." 

For such a benediction on the work we have prayed 
as we have written. 

I am sure there are not a few who have no well- 
grounded hope of eternal life beyond to whom this 
subject has its own charm, and more than once the 
scene we have attempted to describe has stood out 
before them, and they have wept over the sins that 
should put such a yawning gulf between themselves 
and the blessed mother, the blessed wife, or the angel 

9 



130 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

child, the memory of whom is now so sweetly asso- 
ciated with heaven. 

My dear unsaved one, shall that memory be lost, 
and be made to throw a dark shadow on their spot- 
less beauty by your continuing to reject that Sa- 
viour who made them what they are, — " kings and 
priests unto God," — and brought them where they 
are, — " to be forever with the Lord," — and promises 
and waits to promote you to the same excellence and 
distinction? The love of Christ for man is the chief 
motive, but there are times when a single ray of light 
will accomplish more than the full splendor of the sun- 
So I come to you now, and in memory of that green 
grave, long or short it matters not, that has been to 
you so sacred a shrine during the weary years, and 
which keeps fresh in your mind a sweet spirit to whom 
the bliss and beauty of heaven are no longer things of 
wonder ; and I appeal to you, by the love they once 
bore you, by the love you still bear them, by the hope 
you vainly cherish, and, above all, by His love and pas" 
sion to whom they sing and at whose feet they cast 
their crowns, renounce sin, accept Christ, and a holy 
impulse, a new brightness, and an assurance will come 
into the hope to which you now vainly cling that will 
put it into the everlasting light beyond the veil. The 
names of all who have or shall come to that blissful 
abode are or must be written in the Lamb's book of 
life, and this record is only of those who have been 
washed in the blood of the Lamb, but your name is 
not there. * 



RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 131 

You have loved some who are there, but you have 
refused your love to Him who loved them first and 
gave Himself for them ; and now that death has sepa- 
rated them from you, will you allow death to write eter- 
nity on that separation ? And are you never, never more 
to meet those who must be beautiful in your vision as 
they are precious in your memory ? Not, certainly, 
can you come together by your tramping under foot the 
blood of the covenant, and doing despite to the Spirit 
of grace. Your loved ones in heaven, if such there 
be, accepted the gracious provisions of the GospeL 
" Therefore are they before the throne of God." There 
is no other way for you. Without Christ, the sight of 
those radiant holy beings would torture you ; you 
would not possess anything in common, and your hell 
would be magnified by the heaven into which you 
had been thrust. Let the precious blood of Christ, His 
glorious righteousness, become your trust and hope 
now, and then there will be that in your heart that 
will now respond to the holiness and happiness and 
homage of your loved ones in heaven, and one of the 
cheering consolations of life as you fight your way to 
glory, will be the home-meeting and greeting they will 
accord you, as you pass the golden portals to go no 
more out forever. 

God is the source of life and light and love and 
joy, and there, unsaved ones, you have no doubt are 
some you loved on earth and love still. In your 
deepest heart and sober moments I believe you desire 
to meet them. 



132 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

I offer you, before I take my leave of you, it may 
be never to meet you until the heavens be no more, 
and when what I have written will unfold in the 
light of God, and in a certainty and beauty that no 
mortal may attain, in that bright prospect which lies 
on the horizon of the Christian's ongoing life, — I 
offer you the only condition of hope and blissful reali- 
zation. 

" Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for 
the unjust, that he might bring us to God." Accept 
this truth, make it 'the life of your soul, and the soul 
of your life, and the beatitude of the sweet hope that 
has lighted our way through these pages, and all the 
other riches of sovereign grace, shall bless you now, 
and delight you throughout eternity. 

" Blessed are they that do His commandments, that 
they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter 
in through the gates into the city." 



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